THE 



PHILO;^OPHY 



MYSTERY. 




" l^e so itttreatetl^ t!)is serious axiU Uttille matter of ^pirites, 
tf)at noin mxtj tf)tn insertgng some strange stories of counterfegts, 
"trot!) botfj berg Igbelg "Jjisplag tJjeir faIsef)ootr, atiU also not a little 
recreate Ijis readier: antr get in if)t entte f)e so aptlg concUilJetfj to tlje 
purjjose, ti^at l)is fjgstories seeme not itrle tales, or impertinent 
bagaries, l)Ut berg trueti^es, natitrallg fallinfl bntter ti)t compasse 
of 1)16 matter/* 



THE 



PHILOSOPHY 



MYSTERY. 



WALTER COOPER T)ENDY, 



<> 



FELLOW AND HONORARY LIBRARIAN OF THE MEDICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON- 
SENIOR SURGEON TO THE ROYAL INFIRMARY FOR CHILDREN, &C. &f:. 




LONDON; 

LONGMAN, ORME, BROWN, GREEN, & LONGMANS, 

PATERNOSTER ROW. 



1841. 






Gilbert akd Rivington, Printers, 
St. John's Square, London. 



/ ^99 



TO HIS COUSINS, 

STEPHEN DENDY, ESQ. 



OF PARIS, 



CHARLES COOK DENDY, ESQ. 



OF SOUTHGATE HOUSE, CHICHESTER; 



AND TO HIS BROTHER, 



EDWARD STEPHEN DENDY, 



THIS VOLUME IS INSCRIBED, 



IN TOKEN OF THE AFFECTIONATE REGARD 



OF THE AUTHOR. 



/^^ 



CONTENTS. 



THE CHALLENGE. 

PAG£ 

Scenery on the Wye — A Ghost Seer — Tintem Abbey — Faith and Scepticism 
in the reality of Phantoms 1 — 5 

NATURE AND MOTIVES OF GHOSTS. 

Notions of the Ancients regarding the nature of Ghosts — Confidence of the 
Ancients in their appearance — Modern Incidents in illustration of real 
appearance — Qualities of Ghosts — Motives of Apparitions — Ancient and 
modern Stories 6 — 17 

PROPHECY OF SPECTRES. 

Ancient spectral Prophecy — Modern Stories in illustration of prophetic 
Spectres — Philosophy and Poesy of Shakspere — Holy influence of Spectral 
Visitations — Stories of apparently special influence of the Deity 18 — 33 

ILLUSION OF SPECTRES. 

Reasons for early faith in Phantoms — Modern errors regarding classic Super- 
stitions — Shallowness and Fallacy of modern Incidents — Explanation of 
Ghost Stories by Coincidence — Incidents in proof of Coincidence — Proneness 
of intellectual Minds to credulity and exaggeration — Innocent invention of 
an incident at Bowood 34 — 51 

PHANTASY FROM MENTAL ASSOCIATION. 

Influence of interesting localities — Definition of a Phantom — An intense idea 
— Demonomania— Stings of Conscience — Curious effect of peculiar study or 
intense thought — Darkness and Obscurity — Romance of reality — A mys- 
terious incident 52 — 66 

PHANTASY FROM CEREBRAL EXCITEMENT. 

Second Sight — National propensity to the Sight — Romance and Poetry of the 
Mountains — Morbid predisposition to Second Sight — Unearthly Visions on 
the eve of Dissolution— Glimpses of Reason in dying Maniacs 67—79 

a 



CONTENTS. 



PHANTASY FROM CEREBRAL CONGESTION. 

Phantoms of intellectual Minds — Illusion of Opium — Illustrations of Nar- 
cotic Influence „ 



POETIC PHANTASY, OR FRENZY. 
Inspiration of Poesy and Painting— Shakspere—Fuseli— Blake— Philosophy 
and Madness — Illusion of Tasso— Truth of Poesy— Splendid illusions at 
the onset of Mania — Melancholy constitution and decay of Poetic Minds — 
Letter of a Cheromaniac — Sensibility — Unhappy consequences of cherishing 
Romance — Fragment of John Keats 89 — 100 

PHANTASY FROM SYMPATHY WITH THE BRAIN. 

Philosophy of Moral Causes— Effect of thought and of the function of the 
Stomach in producing physical changes in the Brain — Stories in proof of 
this influence— Illusions from Derangements of Vision — Curious cases of 
ocular Spectra from peculiar conditions of the Eye 101—112 

MYSTERIOUS FORMS AND SIGNS. 
Stories of Supernatural Appearances 113 — 122 

ANALYSIS AND CLASSIFICATION OF SPECTRAL ILLUSION. 

Credulity — Arrangement of Causes of Spectral Illusion — Illustration of Atmo- 
spheric Illusions — Natural Phenomena — Fata Morgana — Schattenman of 
the Brockeu — Romance of unlettered minds • 123 — 140 

ILLUSIONS OF ART. 
Monkish Impostures — Optical Toys — Spontaneous Combustion 141—146 

ILLUSTRATION OF MYSTERIOUS SOUNDS. 

Elemental Causes — Impositions at Woodstock — Tedworth — Cock Lane — 
Subterranean Sounds — Currents of Air — Memnon — Phonic Instruments — 
Vocal curiosity in young Richmond , 147 — 154 

FAIRY MYTHOLOGY. 
Origin of Faery — Legends of the Mythology of various Climes — Cauld Lad of 

Hilton 155—165 

DEMONOLOGY. 

Classic and Indian Mythology— Embodying of a Demon— Stories illustrative 
of the Superstitions of Ireland and Cornwall — Legend of the Changelings — 
Poetry of Nature — Preadamite Beings 166 — 177 



NATURE OF SOUL AND MIND. 

Psychology of the Greeks and of the Moderns— Essence of Phrenology— Lord 
Brougham— Priestley— Paley— Johnson— Modes of Sepulture— Paradise- 
Atheism— Deity— Hindu Mythology— Senile Intellect 178—192 



CONTENTS. XI 



NATURE OF SLEEP. 

PAGE 

Unconsciousness of Sleep — Necessity of Slumber — Malady of Collins — Somno- 
lency of the Brute and of Savages— Periods of Sleep— Sleeplessness and its 
Antidotes 193-204 



SUBLIMITY AND IMPERFECTION OF DREAMING. 
Unconsciousness of the Dream — Arguments on this question— Episode of a 
dreaming Life 205—213 



PROPHECY OF DREAMS. 
Ancient Prophetic Dreams — Stories of modern Prophecies in Dreaming 214—222 

MORAL CAUSES OF DREAMING. 

Associations of Dreaming — Incongruous Combinations — Source of Ideas in 
Dreams — Innate Idea — Undreaming Minds — Flitting of the Spirit — Fallacy 
of Mental Energy in the Dream — Illusion of Dreams — Marmontel 223 — 235 

ANACHRONISM AND COINCIDENCE OF DREAMS. 

Celerity of Ideas in the Dream — Sacred Records of Dreams — Danger of 
profane Discussion of Scripture — Fallacy of Dreams — Consequences of 
Credulity in Dreams 236—256 

MATERIAL CAUSES OF DREAMS. 

Blending of Metaphysics and Philosophy — Confusion of ancient and modern 
Classifications of Dreams — Curious Cases of suspended Memory — Anecdotes 
of Tenacity of Memory — Physiology of Memory— Ghost of an amputated 
Limb 257—269 

INTENSE IMPRESSION.— MEMORY. 

Curious Cases of Associations — Deranged Memory — Dreams of Animals — 
Poetic Illustrations 270—280 

INFLUENCE OF DARK BLOOD IN THE BRAIN. 

Conditions of the Brain — Analogy of Dreaming and Mania — Sympathetic 
Causes of Dreaming — Repletion — EflFects of Posture in inducing Dreams — 
Phrenological Illustrations 281—294 

INCUBUS OR NIGHT-MARE. 
Illustrative Incidents — Night-mare of the Mind 295 — 303 

SOMNILOQUENCE.— SOMNAMBULISM. 

Stories of Sleep-talking— Stories of Sleep-walking — Changes of disposition in 
Somnambulism — Abeyance of Memory during the Interval — Exactness and 
Energy during Somnambulism — Concentration of Power— Unconsciousness 
— Analysis of Sleep-walking — Theory oi Reflex Action of the Nervous 
System— Irresistibility — Disease of the Brain in Somnambulists ....304—328 



XU CONTENTS. 



IMITATIVE MONOMANIA. 

PAGE 

Dance of the Middle Ages— Tarantulism— Saint Vitus' Dance— Tigretier— 
Lycanthropy — Fanaticism during the Commonwealth — Moravians — The 
Kent Tragedy— Stories of Imitative Suicide— EflEects of Stramonium, and 
of Gaseous Inhalation 329—340 

REVERIE. 

Abstraction of Idiocy — Cretinism — Wandering of the Mind — Concentrative- 
ness — Anecdotes illustrative of lUusive Abstraction 341 — 352 



ABSTRACTION OF INTELLECT. 

Anecdotes in illustration — Brown Study — Apathy — Heroism — Reverie of 
Philosophy — Sonata di Diavolo— Reverie at Caerphilly '—Intense Impres- 
sion—Abstraction of Deep Studyr— Reverie of the Dying 353 — 366 

SOMNOLENCE.— TRANCE.— CATALEPSY. 

Description of Trance — Legends of Deep Sleepers — Stories of Modern Trances 
— Analogies from Intense Impression— Periodical Catalepsy 367 — 377 

PREMATURE INTERMENT.— RESUSCITATION. 

Stories in Illustration— Romance, Life in Death— Causes of Resuscitation — 
Disunion of Mind and Body — Insensibility of the Decollated Head — Sensa- 
tions during Hanging and Drowning — Case of Dr. Adam Clarke 378 — 392 

TRANSMIGRATION.— ANALYSIS OF TRANCE. 

State of the Spirit after Death — Fables of Transmigration — Superstition in 
India and England— Tenacity of Life — Hybernation— Sleep of Plants — 
Physiology of Trance 393 — 404 

MESMERISM. 

Its origin — Commissions for its investigation — Caspar Hauser — Sensations of 
Magnetism — Magnetized Trees — Operations during Magnetic Trance — 
Transference of Senses— Mineral Traction— Clairvoyance — Trance of Santa 
Theresa — Prophetess of Prevorst — Magnetic Aura — Personal Sympathy — 
Socrates — Fascino — Prince Hohenlohe 405 — 430 

SIBYLLINE INFLUENCE. 

Occult Science— A Gipsy — SpeUs and Charms — Relics — Ordeals — Philosophy 
of Prophetic Fulfilment — Melancholy effects of Prophecy — Astrology — 
Conclusion »....431 — 443 



THE 



PHILOSOPHY OF MYSTEUY. 



THE CHALLENGE. 

♦* There are more things in heav'n and earth, Horatio, 
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."— Hamlet. 

There was a shallop floating on the Wye^ among the 
gray rocks and leafy woods of Chepstow. Within it 
were two fair girls reclining : the one blending the ro- 
mantic wildness of a maid of Italy with the exquisite 
purity of English nature ; the other illuming^ with 
the devotion of a vestal^ the classic beauty of a Greek. 

There was a young and learned bachelor sitting at 
the helm. Study had stamped an air of thoughtfulness 
on his brow ; yet a smile was ever playing on his lips^ 
as his heart felt the truth and influence of the beautiful 
life around him. 

Listen^ gentle reader^ we pray> thy courtesy and thy 
patience, as a rude unskilful pen traces the breathed 
thoughts of these wanderers of the Wye. 

Castaly. We have roamed, dear Ida, among the 
classic lands of the far-off Mediterranean : we have 



2 THE CHALLENGE. 

looked^ from her pinnacles of snow, on the silvery gleami- 
ness of Switzerland, and from purple sierras on the sunny- 
splendour of Spain ; yet these English meadows, with 
their fringes of wild bloom, come o^er the heart with all 
the freshness of an infantas dream. Yon majestic crag 
of WyndchfF is flinging its purple shadows athwart the 
water, and floods of golden glory are streaming through 
the beech-woods of Piercefield : and see, our little sail, 
white as the wing of a swan, is wafting us towards 
Abbey Tintern, along this beautiful valley, where the 
river almost doubles on itself; meandering among its 
mead-flowers and its mosses, as loth to leave its lux- 
uriant bed. Listen ! the breath of evening is among 
the trees that dip in the ripple of the Wye their leaves 
of shivering gold. What a scene for minions of the 
moon to revel in ! Say, shall we charm the Hngering 
hours of this midsummer night among the ivied clois- 
ters of the abbey ? But where is Astrophel, our 
moon-struck student, who, Hke Chaucer's scholar, 
keeps 

" at his bed's head, 

A twenty books clothed in black and red, 
Of Aristotle and his philosophy V' 

They have not taught him courtesy, or he would not 
steal away from the light of our eyes to commune with 
owls and ivy-bushes. 

Yet we promise him our smile for your sake, Evelyn. 
Indeed, I am thinking his mysteries will chime in 
admirably with the solemnity of this lone abbey. We 
appoint him master of our revels. 

Evelyn. Let your smile be in pity, fair Castaly, on 
the illusions of Astrophel. Ensconced in his dark closet, 
within a charmed ring of black-letter folios, he has 
wofuUy warped his studies, and has read himself into 
the belief that he is a gifted seer. Yet love him. 



THE CHALLENGE. 3 

lady^ for his virtues ; for his history is a very paradox. 
His heart is melting with charity for the beings of 
earth, yet his mind is half-weaned from their fellowship. 
At his imminent peril, he leaps into the I sis to save a 
drowning boy, and the world calls him misanthrope, 
withal. It is the fate indeed of many a cloistered 
scholar, whose 

" desires ai-e dolphin like, 

And soar above the element they live in." 

Such is Astrophel. 

Ida. He looks his part to perfection. There is a 
shadowy expression in his dark eye, as it were poring 
over the volume of his own thoughts. Beneath the 
slender shaft of yon eastern window, behold this 
proselyte to the sublime science of shadows. He 
approaches. 

Ev. The hour is on him yet. — ^Astrophel ! 

Astrophel. Whisper, and tread lightly, Evelyn, 
for this is haunted ground. Underneath this velvet 
turf rest the mouldering bones of a noble. I have 
held communion in my slumber with the spirit by 
which they were once animated and moved; and the 
mysteries of the tomb have been unfolded to me. The 
eidolon of Roger Bigod has thrice come across my 
sight. 

Cast. A ghost ! 

Ev. And Astrophel believes the truth of this vision ! 
Such phantasy might well become the Cistercian 
monks, who once stalked along these gloomy cloisters, 
but not an Oxford scholar. 

AsTR. And why not an Oxford scholar, Evelyn? 
I do believe in the existence of beings out of the com- 
mon course of nature ; and, indeed, the history of the 
world has ever proved the general leaning to this belief, 
and my own mind feels that this universal adoption is 

b3 



4 THE CHALLENGE. 

a proof of reality of existence. Smile at^ or reason 
with me^ you will not shake my faith, for I beheve it 
true ; and even Johnson confessed, that " although all 
argument might be against it, yet all belief is for it.^' 

Ev. The diffusion of this fallacy, Astrophel, proves 
only the universal sameness of the constitution of mind. 
You may, indeed, cite the high authority of Johnson, 
that ^^a belief in the apparitions of the dead could 
become universal only by its truth.^^ Yet, if this one 
word, apparition, be rightly interpreted, it will not 
imply the existence of real phantoms, however ethereal, 
before the eye, for the notion so construed would have 
been a grand error of Imlac ; no, he adopts an indefinite 
expression, conscious that mere metaphysics were not 
illustrative of this subtle question. 

There was one Theophilus Insulanus, who, I think, 
calls all those who have not faith in phantoms, irre- 
ligious, because, forsooth, "these ghosts are never 
employed on subjects of frivolous concern." I may be 
under the ban of this flimsy enthusiast, but you will 
not gain me as a proselyte, Astrophel, for, like our 
great poet, I have seen too many ghosts myself. 

Yet I know some few self-created wizards, who have 
solved to their hearts' content those two grand mys- 
teries, the real existence and the purpose of ghostly 
visitations ; who, like Owain Glyndwr, '^ can call spirits 
from the vasty deep,'' and even expect that they will 
"come when they do call for them." Others have 
laboured under self-glamourie, and believed themselves 
magicians, until put to the proof. I remember the 
painter, Richard Cosway, was under this illusion ; and, 
when the old cynic Northcote desired him to raise Sir 
Joshua Reynolds, the pseudo-magus confessed himself 
foiled, by advancing this simple excuse, " I would, were 
it not sinful /" 

It were well if these monomaniacs were laid in the 



THE CHALLENGE. 5 

famous bed of St. Hilary at Poictiers ; for there, with 
the muttering of a prayer or two, as the legend tells us, 
madmen may be cured. 

But, in truth, the light of divine reason has so far 
dispelled these fancies for the supernatural, that very 
few of us, I presume, are confident in the hope of 
raising a ghost when we want one ; or of laying it in 
the Red Sea for a hundred years, by two clergymen, 
with "bell, book, and candle,^' and scraps of mystic 
Latin, when it becomes rude or troublesome. 

Ida. Will you not concede that many visionaries 
have believed, and written from pure and even holy 
motives ? 

Ev. There is no doubt of this, lady ; yet while it has 
fanned the flame of superstition in minds of lower intel- 
lect, with many, the endeavour to prove too much has 
marred these motives, and weakened faith, even in the 
credulous ; so that we may hope the wild romances of 
Beaumont, and Burthogge, and Baxter, and Aubrey, and 
Glanville, and that arch-mystagogue Moreton (whose 
book is half full of prolix dialogues between ghosts and 
ghost-seers), will soon be mere objects of interest and 
curiosity to the black-letter bibliomaniac and the more 
erudite legend-hunter. 

Cast. We will not submit to your anathema, Evelyn. 
This learned clerk has challenged our faith. What a 
treasury of secrets might he unfold to us from the 
mystic tomes of antiquity, the wonders of profane 
psychology; from the tales of Arabia to Vatheck and 
the Epicurean — from the classic mythology of Homer to 
the wild romances of his humble prototype Ossian. 

Let it be a match : we will listen, Astrophel, while 
you " unsphere the spirit of Plato '^' and here we sit in 
judgment, on the velvet throne of this our court of 
Tintern. 



NATURE AND MOTIVES OF GHOSTS. 



'In the most high and palmy state of Rome, 
A little ere the mightiest Julius fell, 
The graves stood tenautless, and the sheeted dead 
Did squeak and gibher in the Roman streets." 

Hamlet, 4to. B. 



AsTR. It is not from the sources of mythology 
alone^ that I adduce my illustrations of the reahty of 
ghosts, but from the myriads of incidents which ancient 
and modern history record. Yet may I well crave your 
courtesy for the scraps of fable, and perchance of im- 
posture, that may unwittingly creep into my discourse. 
Listen to me. 

It was believed by the ancients that each body pos- 
sessed three ghosts — to be released on its dissolution. 
The manes at once emigrated to the region of Pluto : 
the spiritus ascended to the skies : the umbra or shade 
still wandered on the earth. Or, as the poet has more 
comprehensively sung, 

" Bis duo sunt homini, manes^ caro, spiritus, umbra ; 
Q,uatuor ista loci bis duo suscipiunt : 
Terra tegit carnem, tumulum circumvolat umbra, 
Orcus habet manes, spii'itus astra petit." 

Meaning that there are four principles in man, and this 



NATURE OF GHOSTS. 7 

is their destiny : — the flesh to earth ; the ghost to the 
tomb ; the soul to Hades ; and the spirit to heaven. 

The queen of Carthage^ confiding in this creed, 
threatens ^neas that her umbra will haunt him upon 
earth, while her manes will rejoice in his torments. 

The notions of other mystic scholars are thus re- 
corded by old Burton, in his " Anatomy of Melancholy : ^^ 
as those of Surius — ^'^that there be certain monsters 
of hell and places appointed for the punishment of men^s 
souls, as at Hecla in Iceland, where the ghosts of dead 
men are familiarly seen, and sometimes talk with the 
living. Saint Gregory, Durand, and the rest of the 
schoolmen, derive as much from ^tna in Sicily, Lipara, 
Hiera — and those volcanoes in America, and that fear- 
ful mount Heckleberg in Norway, where lamentable 
screeches and bowlings are continually heard, which 
strike a terror to the auditors : fiery chariots are con- 
tinually seen to bring in the souls of men in the likeness 
of crows, and devils ordinarily goe in and out.^^ And 
then, to bring this phantasy to a climax by a pandemo- 
nium of ghosts, listen to Bredenbachius, in his ^'^Peri- 
granions in the Holy Land,^^ where " once a yeare dead 
bodies arise about March, and walk, and after awhile 
hide themselves again : thousands of people come yearly 
to see them.'^ And this reminds me of the phantom of 
old Booty, who at the hour of his death in England was 
seen by the crew of a ship running into the crater of 
Stromboli in the remote Mediterranean, — a story which 
even in the present century was made the subject of 
discussion in a justice court. 

Now, you must know, the ancients believed that 
only those who died of the sword possessed this pri- 
vilege. 

These are the words of Flavins Josephus : " What 
man of virtue is there that does not know that those 
souls which are severed from their fleshly bodies in 

6 



8 NATURE OF GHOSTS. 

battles by the sword are received by the ether, that 
purest of elements, and joined to that company which 
are placed among the stars : — that they become good 
demons and propitious heroes, and shew themselves as 
such to their posterity afterwards ; while upon those 
souls that wear away in and with their distempered 
bodies, comes a subterranean night to dissolve them to 
nothing, and a deep obhvion to take away all the re- 
membrance of them ? And this, notwithstanding they 
be clean from all spots and defilements of this world; so 
that in this case the soul at the same time comes to the 
utmost bounds of its life, and of its body, and of its 
memorial also/^ 

The mystery of the nature of these ghosts I may not 
presume to define ; but there are many learned writers 
of antiquity who beheved in their materiality, and 
broached the intricate question of their quahty and 
formation. 

The alchymist Paracelsus writes of the astral element 
or spirit — one of the two bodies which compose our 
nature : being more ethereal, it survived some time after 
the death of the more substantial form, and sometimes 
became the familiar spirit of the magician. And what 
writes Lucretius the Epicurean to illustrate his credence 
in apparitions ? That the surfaces of bodies are con- 
stantly thrown ofi" by a sort of centrifugal force ; that 
an exact image is often presented to us by this surface 
coming off" as it were entire, hke the cast skin of the 
rattle-snake or the shell of the chrysalis ; and thus the 
ideas of our absent or departed friends strike on the 
mind. 

The olden chymists, in the age of Louis XIV. 
accounted for spectral forms by the saline atoms of a 
putrid corpse being set free, and combining again in 
their pristine form. Listen, I pray you, to this grave 
philosophy of an abstruse essay, writ in 1794. 



NATURE OF GHOSTS. 9 

^^ The apparitions of souls departed do^ by the virtue 
of their formative plastic power^ frame unto themselves 
the vehicles in which they appear out of the moisture 
of their bodies. So ghosts do often appear in church- 
yards^ and that but for a short time, to wit, before the 
moisture is wholly dried up.^^ 

" Such are those thick and gloomy shadows damp, 
Oft seen in charnel -vaults and sepulchres, 
Lingering and sitting by a new-made grave." 

And we read in the chronicles, that " during the 
time the ancients burned^ not hurled their dead, there 
was no such appearance of ghosts as is now.^' 

Why waves the coarse grass ranker over the grave? 
It is touched by the larva of the rotting carcase, w^hich, 
ascending from its putrid chrysalis, a butterfly, or Psyche, 
flits awhile like an ephemera, and drops again into the 
vault. 

A sentiment something like this, I believe, was the 
grand cause of the enrolment of the mummies by the 
Egyptians ; for they thought while the body remained 
entire, the soul was flitting about it : and the early 
Christians even believed that a portion at least of the 
soul remained, uncorrupted by the body. 

Evelyn will grant that among the Romans there was 
a devout wish to be buried near venerated beings and 
saints, an emanation from whose bodies, they believed, 
would inspire the hearts of the believers. 

And here I will relate a story from the Dinan Journal 
of 1840, and also the fragment of a very mysterious 
tale told with all the solemnity of a faithful chro- 
nicle. 

"^ We had the curious spectacle of a long procession 
of girls from Pleudiheus, passing through our streets 
to the chapel of Saint Anne, to offer up prayers for the 
repose of the soul of the mother of one of them, who 



10 NATURE OF GHOSTS. 

has been dead twenty-two years^ and who every five 
years has appeared to her daughter^ urging her to have 
masses said for her. This time the troubled spirit pre- 
scribed the day^ hour^ and place of the service^ and even 
the precise dresses she would have the votaries wear. 
Consequently^ they were all lightly clothed in white^ 
although the rain fell and the streets were full of mud. 
— Some of the inhabitants of Dinan affirm that they 
saw the ghost of the deceased, marching at the head of 
the procession to the door of the chapel, where it 
remained till the mass was finished, and then suddenly 
vanished.^^ 

Returning from the harbour to Cadiz with some 
Spanish donas, the Baron Geramb heard a voice in 
French, crying, ^^ Save me ! Help, help !'^ but at the time 
he took little or no heed of the matter. On the morrow 
was seen on the shore of the harbour a body on a black 
board, with lighted tapers by its side, which was covered 
by the Baron^s direction. During a tempest in the 
evening, some secret impulse directed him again to the 
shore. Before his bewildered sight arose from the spot 
a shapeless phantom wrapped in the black winding- 
sheet which he had provided. 

The phantom moved along with gigantic strides, 

assuming a globular form, and then, whirling in spiral 

"^ circles, bounded off", and appeared at a distance like 

^9 a giant. The spectre led the Baron to the streets of 

I Cadiz, its course being accompanied by a noise as of 

the tinkling of autumnal leaves. In Cadiz a door 

suddenly opened with force, and the spectre rushed 

like lightning into the house, and plunged into the 

cellar. There was the sound of deep groaning, and the 

Baron descended into the vault: there lay the corpse 

naked and livid, and on it was prostrated an aged man, 

uttering the deep sighs of abject misery and despair. 

In a gloomy corner of this cave of death leaned the 



NATURE OF GHOSTS. 11 

phantom^ revolving in its spiral whirls^ and then 
changing to a floating cloud of light ; and then there 
beamed forth the pale features of a youth^ undulating 
as if on the bosom of a wave^ which murmured in the 
ear. Then came the chaunting of anthems and prayers 
for the dead, and a glittering young girl in white robes 
glided into the cellar, and knelt in devotion by the 
body. 

The phantom — and so the legend proceeds. 

There is a wondrous mystery, I grant, enveloping 
this story ; but if there be any truth in that alchymic 
re-animation, Palingenesy — 

" If chemists from a rose's ashes, 
Can raise the rose itself in glasses ;" 

nay, if the sparkling diamond shines forth from a mass 
of charcoal, why may not the ashes of a body be made 
into a ghost, illustrative of the philosophy of substan- 
tial apparitions, adopted by Kircher, — a body rebuilt, 
after being resolved, for a time, into its constituent 
elements ? The Parisian alchymists of the seventeenth 
century, indeed, demonstrated this mystery, and raised 
a phoenix from its ashes. They submitted to the pro- 
cess of distillation some earth from the cemetery of the 
Innocents ; during which ceremony, they were scared 
by the appearance of perfect human shapes, struggling 
in the glass vessels they were employing. And, lastly. 
Dr. Ferriar thus deposes : — A ruffian was executed, his 
body dissected, and his skull pulverised by an anato- 
mist. The student, who slept in the chamber of 
experiment, saw, in the night-time, a progressive 
getting together of the fragments, until the criminal 
became perfect, and glided out at the door. 

And here is a legend of deeper mystery still. 

There was a merry party collected in a town in 
France, and amongst all the gay lords and ladies there 



12 NATURE OF GHOSTS. 

assembled, there was none who caused so great a sen- 
• sation as a beautiful young lady, who danced, played, 

and sang in the most exquisite style. There were only 
two unaccountable circumstances belonging to her: 
one was, that she never went to church or attended 
family prayers ; the other, that she always wore a 
slender, black velvet band or girdle round her waist. 
She was often asked about these pecuharities, but she 
/ always evaded the interrogatories ; and still, by her 

amiable manners and beauty won all hearts. One 
evening, in a dance, her partner saw an opportunity 
of pulling the loop of her little black girdle behind : it 
fell to the groimd, and immediately the lady became 
pale as a sheet; then, gradually shrunk and shrunk, 
till at length nothing was to be seen in her place but 
a small heap of grey ashes. 

And what think you now, Evelyn ? 

Ev. I think your candle burned very blue, Astro- 
phel, when you were poring over these midnight 
legends ; yet, I believe, I may, by and by, explain the 
story of your Lady of the Ashes ; — all, excepting the 
mystery of the sable girdle. But, methinks, you should 
not have stopped short of the qualities by which we 
may recognise the genus of these phantoms. There 
was once, as I have heard, a ghost near Cirencester, 
which vanished in a very nice perfume, and a melo- 
dious twang; and Master Lilly, therefore, concluded 
it to be a fairy : and Propertius, I know, writes of ano- 
ther ; and he decided, that the scent diffused on her dis- 
appearance, proclaimed her to be a goddess ! Glanville 
has set himself to argue upon, nay, demonstrate, all 
questions regarding materiality and immateriality, and 
the nature of spirits ; puzzling us with mathematical 
diagrams, and occupying fifteen chapters on the nature 
of the witch of Endor : and Andrew Moreton, too, in 
his " Secrets,^' comments, with pedantic profanation, 



NATURE OF GHOSTS. 13 

on the "infernal paw-wawing of this condemned crea- 
ture/^ Coleridge^ and even Sir Walter, who had a 
mighty love of legends, propose a question, whether 
she was a ventriloquist or an aristocratic fortune- 
teller, or an astrologer or a gipsy, imposing on the 
credulity of Saul. And yet that same Sir Walter 
very shrewdly suggested to Sir WilUam Gell the manu- 
facture of a ghost, with a thin sheet of tin, painted 
white, so that by half a turn the spectre would instantly 
vanish. 

Cast. A ghost, I believe, according to the rules of 
phantasy, ought to be without matter or form, or indeed 
any sensible properties. Yet are very serious tales 
related of guns bursting when fired at them, and swords 
broken by their contact, and of loud voices issuing 
from filmy phantoms through which the moonbeams 
are seen to glimmer. A spirit ought, of course, to 
communicate with us in another way than that which 
we know, and possess those ethereal faculties of creep- 
ing through chinks or keyholes, and of resuming its 
airy form, like the sylph of Belinda, when the " glitter- 
ing forfex^' had cut it in twain. An exquisite morceau 
of such a phantom just now flits across my memory. 
It is of two old ladies dwelling in two border castles in 
Scotland. One of these dames was visited by the 
spectre bust of a man ; and the other by the lower half 
of him. Which had the better bargain, I know not, 
but I believe — 

AsTR. Nay, it were not difficult, lady, to overwhelm 
me with tales like yours — the idle and unmeaning gos- 
sip of a winter^s night : but there are many spectral 
visitations so intimately associated with events, that the 
faculty even of prophecy cannot be doubted. Bodine, 
as Burton writes, is fully satisfied that " these souls of 
men departed, ^/ corporeal, are of some shape, and that 
absolutely round, like sun and moone, because that is 



14 MOTIVES OF GHOSTS. 

the most perfect form : that they can assume other 
aerial bodies^ all manner of shapes at their pleasure, 
appear in what likeness they will themselves : that they 
are most swift in motion, can pass many miles in an 
instant, and so likewise transform bodies of others into 
what form they please, and, with admirable celerity, 
remove them from place to place : that they can repre- 
sent castles in the ayre, armies, spectrums, prodigies, 
and such strange objects to mortal men^s eyes ; cause 
smells, savors, deceive all the senses ; foretel future 
events, and do many strange miracles/^ 

Then the eccentric Francis Grose has thus summed 
up many of their wondrous attributes : — 

'^ The spirit of a person deceased is either commis- 
sioned to return for some especial errand, such as the 
discovery of a murder, to procure restitution of lands, 
or money unjustly withheld from an orphan or widow : 
or, having committed some injustice whilst living, can- 
not rest till that is redressed. Sometimes the occasion 
of spirits revisiting this world is to inform their heir 
in what secret place or private drawer in an old trunk 
they had hid the title-deeds of the estate, or where, in 
troublesome times, they had buried the money and 
plate. Some ghosts of murdered persons, whose 
bodies have been secretly buried, cannot be at ease till 
their bones have been taken up and deposited in sacred 
ground, with all the rites of Christian burial.^^ The 
ghost of Hamlet^s father walked on the platform at 
Elsineur, to incite his son to revenge his murder ; and 
many modern phantoms have enlivened the legends of 
our local histories, bent on the same mysterious 
errand. 

The mythology of the ancients, and the fairy super- 
stition of our own land, are also replete with legends of 
these apparitions. The rites of sepulture were essential 
for the repose of the manes. If the body was not 



MOTIVES OF GHOSTS. 15 

quietly entombed, the soul was wandering on the banks 
of Styx for one hundred years, ere it was permitted 
Charon to ferry it across the river. Thus spoke the 
shade of Patroclus to Achilles, in his dream : 

" Thou sleep'st, Achilles, and Patroclus, erst 
Thy best belov'd, iu death forgotten lies. 
Haste, give me burial : I would pass the gates 
Of Hades, for the shadows of the dead 
Now drive me from their fellowship afar." 

And this is a prevailing sentiment among the North 
American Indians : 

^^ The bones of our countrymen lie uncovered, their 
bloody bed has not been washed clean, their spirits 
cry against us, — they must be appeased.^' 

In the letter of Pliny the Consul, to Sura, we learn 
that there was at Athens a house haunted by a chain- 
rattling ghost. Athenodorus, the philosopher, hired 
the house, determined to quiet the restless spirit. 
'^ When it grew towards evening, he ordered a couch to 
be prepared for him in the fore part of the house, and, 
after calling for a light, together with his pencil and 
tablets, he directed all his people to retire. The first 
part of the night passed in usual silence, when at 
length the chains began to rattle. However he neither 
lifted up his eyes, nor laid down his pencil, but diverted 
his observation by pursuing his studies with greater 
earnestness. The noise increased, and advanced nearer, 
till it seemed at the door, and at last in the chamber. 
He looked up and saw the ghost exactly in the manner 
it had been described to him — it stood before him 
beckoning with the finger. Athenodorus made a sign 
with his hand that it should wait a little, and threw his 
eyes again upon his papers ; but the ghost, still rattling 
his chains in his ears, he looked up and saw him 
beckoning him as before. Upon this he immediately 



16 MOTIVES OP GHOSTS. 

arose, and, with the hght in his hand, followed it. The 
spectre slowly stalked along as if encumbered with his 
chains, and, turning into the area of the house, sud- 
denly vanished. Athenodorus, being thus deserted, 
made a mark with some grass and leaves where the 
spirit left him. The next day he gave information to 
the magistrates, and advised them to order that spot to 
be dug up. This was accordingly done, and the skele- 
ton of a man in chains was there found ; for the body 
having lain a considerable time in the ground, was pu- 
trified, and had mouldered away from the fetters. The 
bones, being collected together, were publicly buried ; 
and thus, after the ghost was appeased by the proper 
ceremonies, the house was haunted no more.^' 

Yet, not only to entreat the rites of sepulture, the 
phantom will walk according to some law of those 
beings remote from the fellowship of human nature, — 
it may be to obtain readmission to that earth from 
which it was, by some fairy spell, in exile. 

In the wilds of Rob Roy's country, there is many a 
Highlander believing still the traditions of the Daoine 
Shi, or Men of Peace : and among the legends of 
Aberfoyle there is one phantom tale that is apropos to 
my illustrations. 

There was one Master Robert Kirke. He was one 
evening taking his night walk on a fairy hill, or dun- 
shi, in the vicinity of his manse. On a sudden he fell 
to the ground, struck, as it appeared to many, by 
apoplexy : the seers, however, believed it to be a trance 
inflicted on him by the fairy people for thus invading 
the sacred bounds of their kingdom. After the inter- 
ment, the phantom of the minister appeared to one of 
his relatives, and desired him to go to Grahame of 
Duchray, his cousin, and assure him that he was not 
dead, but was at that time a prisoner in elf land, and 
the only moment in which the fairy charm could be 



MOTIVES OF GHOSTS. l7 

dissolved_, was at the christening of his posthumous 
child. The counter-spell was this: that Grahame 
should be present at the baptism^ holding a dish in his 
hand;, and that when the infant was brought, he should 
throw the dish over the phantom ; the appearance of 
which at that moment was faithfully promised. 

When the child was at the font, and while the guests 
were seated, the apparition sat with them at the table ; 
but fear came upon the Graeme at this strange glamou- 
rie : he forgot the solemn injunction, and it is believed 
that Mr. Kirke, to this day, ^^ drees his weird in fairy 
land.'^ 



PROPHECY OF SPECTRES. 



" I'll take the ghosf s word for a thousand pound." — Hamlet. 

Ev. These are very meagre spectres^ Astrophel^ or 
accomplices, as the lawyer would say, after the fact. 

AsTR. I have reserved Prophecies for this evening. 
In the earliest profane records of our globe, we read 
of the frequent visitations of prophetic phantoms. 
Listen, Evelyn, to a story of your own Pliny ; — ^the 
legend of Curtius Rufus. When he was in low cir- 
cumstances, and unknown in the world, he attended 
the governor of Africa into that province. One even- 
ing, as he was walking in the pubhc portico, he was 
extremely surprised with the apparition of a woman, 
whose figure and beauty were more than human. She 
told him she was the tutelar power who presided over 
Africa, and was come to inform him of the future 
events of his life : that he should go back to Rome, 
where he should be raised to the highest honours, 
should return to that province invested with the pro- 
consular dignity, and there should die. Upon his 
arrival at Carthage, as he was coming out of the ship, 
the same figure accosted him upon the shore. It is 
certain, at least, that being seized with a fit of illness. 



PROPHECY OF SPECTRES. 19 

though there were no symptoms in his case that led 
his attendants to despair^ he instantly gave up all hope 
of recovery, and this prediction was in all its points 
accomplished. 

The shade of Romulus appeared to Julius Proculus, 
a patrician, foretelling the splendour of Rome. The 
fate of the battle of Philippi was shown to Brutus in 
his tent, by the evil spirit of Caesar ; and Cassius also 
saw the phantom of Julius on his horse, prepared to 
strike him, shortly before his suicide. In the Talmud 
we read of the announcement of the Rabbi SamuePs 
death to two of his friends, six hundred miles off. 
Then, the host of legends in that ' treasure-booke' of 
mystery, " Wanley^s Wonders ;^' the visions of Dion ; 
of Alexander ; of Crescentius ; of the Pope^s legate at 
the Council of Trent; of Cassius Severus of Parma; 
and myriads of analogies to these; nay, may we not 
believe that the Grecian bards wrote fragments of real 
history, when Patroclus fbretels the death of Hector, 
Hector that of Achilles, and Mezentius of Orodes, or 
when CEdipus predicts the lofty fate of his family to 
Theseus ? 

But leave we the olden classics for the proofs of later 
ages. In the pine-forests of Germany, and in wild 
Caledonia, the legends of spirits and shadows abound 
in the gossip of the old crones, both in the hut of the 
jager and the shelling of the Highland peasant. 

The Taisch (like the Bodach Glas of Fergus Mac Ivor,) 
murmurs the prophecy of death, in the voice of the 
Taishtar, to one about to die ; and the Wraith, Swarth, 
Waft, or Death-Fetch, appears in the Eidolon, or like- 
ness, of the person so early doomed, to some loved 
friend of the party, or sounds of wailing and prophetic 
voices scream and murmur in the mountain-blast. 
The wild romances of Ossian, and the shadowy mys- 
teries so brightly illustrated in the poesy of the '^ Lay,^^ 

c 2 



20 PROPHECY OF SPECTRES. 

the ^'^ Lady of the Lake/' and "Marmion/^ prove how 
deeply the common mind of Scotland leans to her 
mysteries ; how devoutly her seers foretel a doom. 
The evidence of Martin, the historian of the Western 
Isles, is clear and decisive testimony of the possession 
of a faculty of foresight ; and in the reflecting minds of 
many sages, who seek not to explain it by the term 
coincidence, or to impute the vision to mere national 
superstition. Indeed, in their records we have rules 
noted down, by which the seer may overcome the 
imperfections of his vision. If this be filmy or indis- 
tinct, the cloak or plaid must be turned, and the sight 
is clear ; but then the fated seer is often presented with 
his own wraith. 

In Aubrey's ^^ Miscellanies" we read how Sir Richard 
Napier, immediately before his death, was journeying 
from Bedfordshire to Berks, and saw his own appari- 
tion lying stark and stiff on the bed ; how Lady Diana 
Rich, the Earl of Holland's daughter, was met by her 
death-fetch in the garden at Kensington, a month ere 
she died of small-pox; — and listen to this legend of 
Aventine. 

^' The emperor Henry went down through the 
Strudel : in another vessel was Bruno, bishop of 
Wurtzberg, the emperor's kinsman. There sat upon 
a rock, that projected out of the water, a man blacker 
than a Moor, of a horrible aspect, terrible to all who 
beheld it, who cried out, and said to Bishop Bruno, 
^ Hear ! hear ! Bishop : I am thine evil spirit ; thou art 
mine own; go where thou wilt, thou shalt be mine: 
yet, now will I do nought to thee, but soon shalt thou 
see me again.' The bishop crossed and blessed him- 
self; but the holy sign was powerless. At Posenbeis, 
where dwelt the Lady Richlita of Ebersberg, the floor 
of the banqueting-room fell, in the evening : it was the 
death-fall of the bishop." 



PROPHECY OF SPECTRES. 21 

As the protector Seymour was walking with his 
duchess^ at their country seat^ they perceived a 
spectral bloody hand thrust forth from a wall; and 
he was soon after beheaded. 

It is recorded^ that^ like Julius Caesar^ James of Scot- 
land had three warnings. The saintly man in Lithgow 
palace^ and another phantom^ in Jedburgh^ warned King 
James of his fate : the latter wrote a Latin couplet on 
the mantel-piece in the hall : had he read it wisely, 
he had not died at Flodden. 

The demon, or the guardian angel of Socrates, was 
also a prophetic mentor — not only to the sage himself, 
but even to his companions in his presence; and the 
slighting of its counsel often brought regret to those 
who were the subjects of its warning. 

In the minds of Xenophon and Plato its influence 
was devoutly believed, and from the hive of the 
Attic bee I steal this honied morsel: — ^^One Timar- 
chus, a noble Athenian, being at dinner in company 
with Socrates, he rose up to go away, which Socrates 
observing, bade him sit down again, for, said he, 
the demon has just now given me the accustomed 
sign. Some little time after, Timarchus offered again 
to be gone, and Socrates once more stopped him, 
saying, he had the same sign repeated to him. At 
length, when Socrates was earnest in discourse, and 
did not mind him, Timarchus stole away; and, in a 
few minutes after, committed a murder, for which, 
being carried to execution, his last words were, 
^That he had come to that untimely end for not 
obeying the demon of Socrates.^ '^ 

When Ben Jonson was sojourning at Hawthornden, 
he told Mr. Drummond of his own prophetic vision, 
that, ^^ about the time of the plague in London, being 
in the country at Sir Robert Cotton^s house, with old 
Camden, he saw, in a vision, his eldest son, then a 



22 PROPHECY OF SPECTRES. 

young child^ and at London^ appear unto him^ with 
the mark of a bloody cross on his forehead, as if it had 
been cut with a sword ; at which, amazed, he prayed 
unto God; and in the morning, he came to Mr. 
Camden^s chamber, to tell him, who persuaded him it 
was but an apprehension, at which he should not be 
dejected. In the mean time, there came letters from 
his wife, of the death of that boy in the plague. He 
appeared to him of a manly shape, and of that growth 
he thinks he shall be at the resurrection." 

From Walton^s Lives I select the following frag- 
ment: it is a vision of Doctor Donne, the metaphy- 
sician, whose wife died after the birth of a dead child. 
" Sir Robert (Drury) returned about an hour afterwards. 
He found his friend in a state of extasy, and so altered 
in his countenance, that he could not look upon him 
without amazement. The doctor was not able for 
some time to answer the question, what had befallen 
him; but, after a long and perplexed pause, at last 
said, 'I have seen a dreadful vision since I last saw 
you. I have seen my dear wife pass twice by me 
through this room, with her hair hanging about her 
shoulders, and a dead child in her arms : this I have 
seen since I saw you.^ To which Sir Robert an- 
swered, ' Sure, Sir, you have slept since I went out, 
and this is the result of some melancholy dream, 
which I desire you to forget, for you are now awake.^ 
Donne replied, ^ I cannot be more sure that I now 
Hve, than that I have not slept since I saw you; and 
am as sure, that at her second appearing, she stopped, 
looked me in the face, and vanished.^ " 

There was a promise by Lord Tyrone to Lady Beres- 
ford of a visitation from the tomb. Even when the 
phantom appeared to her in the night, the lady ex- 
pressed her diffidence in its reality, but it placed a mark 
upon her wrist, and adjusted her bed-curtains in some 



PROPHECY OF SPECTRES. 23 

supernatural fashion, and even wrote something in her 
pocket-book : so that with earnestness she related to 
her husband in the morning this impressive vision ; and 
it was not long ere missives came, which by announc- 
ing the death of Lord Tyrone proved the spectre pro- 
phetic. 

The tragedian John Palmer died on the stage at 
Liverpool. At the same hour and minute, a shopman 
in London, sleeping under a counter, saw distinctly his 
shade glide through the shop, open the door, and pop 
into the street. This, an hour or two after, he men- 
tioned very coolly, as if Mr. Palmer himself had been 
there. 

Cardan saw, on the ring-finger of his right hand, the 
mark of a bloody sword, and heard at the same time a 
voice which bade him go directly to Milan. The red- 
ness progressively increased until midnight : the mark 
then faded gradually, and disappeared. At that mid- 
night hour his son was beheaded at Milan. 

It was told by Knowles, the governor of Lord Ros- 
common when a boy, that young Wentworth Dillon 
was one day seized with a mood of the wildest eccen- 
tricity, contrary to his usual disposition. On a sudden 
he exclaimed, ^^ My father is dead!" And soon after 
missives came from Ireland to announce the fact. 

The father of Doctor Blomberg, clerk of the closet to 
George IV., was captain in an army serving in America. 
We are told by Doctor Rudge, that six officers, three 
hundred miles from his position, were visited after 
dinner by this modern Banquo, who sat down in a 
vacant chair. One said to him, ^'^ Blomberg, are you 
mad?" He rose in silence, and slowly glided out at 
the door. He was slain on that day and hour. 

In the ^^Diary of a Physician" (an embellished record 
of facts), we read the story of the spectre-smitten Mr. 
M , whose leisure hours were passed in the perusal 



24 PROPHECY OF SPECTRES. 

of legends of diablerie and witchcraft. One evening, 
when his brain was excited by champagne, he re- 
turned to his rooms, and saw a dear friend in his chair ; 
and this friend had died suddenly, and was at that 
moment laid out in his chamber; — a combination of 
horrors so unexpected and intense, that monomania 
was the result. 

May I also recount to you this vision from Moore's 
Life of Byron ? '^ Lord Byron used sometimes to men- 
tion a strange story which the commander of the 
packet. Captain Kidd, related to him on the passage. 
This officer stated, that being asleep one night in his 
berth, he was awakened by the pressure of something 
heavy on his limbs, and, there being a faint light in the 
room, could see as he thought distinctly the figure of 
his brother, who was at that time in the same service in 
the East Indies, dressed in his uniform, and stretched 
across the bed. Concluding it to be an illusion of the 
senses, he shut his eyes and made an effort to sleep. 
But still the same pressure continued, and still as often 
as he ventured to take another look, he saw the figure 
lying across him in the same position. To add to the 
wonder, on pulling his hand forth to touch this form, 
he found the uniform, in which it appeared to be 
dressed, dripping wet. On the entrance of one of his 
brother officers, to whom he called out in alarm, the 
apparition vanished ; but in a few months after, he re- 
ceived the starthng inteUigence, that on that night his 
brother had been drowned in the Indian seas. Of the 
supernatural character of this appearance Captain Kidd 
himself did not appear to have the slightest doubt.^^ 

From Dr. Pritchard, I quote this fragment: — "A 
maid-servant, who lived in the house of an elderly lady, 
some years since deceased, had risen, early on a winter's 
morning, and was employed in washing by candle-light 
the entry of the house ; when she was greatly surprised 



PROPHECY OF SPECTRES. 25 

at seeing her mistress, who was then in a precarious 
state of healthy coming down stairs in her night dress. 
The passage being narrow, she rose up to let her mis- 
tress pass, which the latter did with a hasty step, and 
walked into the street, appearing, to the terrified 
imagination of the girl, to pass through the door with- 
out opening it. The servant related the circumstance 
to the son and daughter of the lady, as soon as they 
came down stairs, who desired her to conceal it from 
their mother, and anxiously waited for her appearance. 
The old lady entered the room, while they were talking 
of the incident, but appeared languid and unwell, and 
complained of having been disturbed by an alarming 
dream. She had dreamed that a dog had pursued her 
from her chamber down the staircase, and along the 
entry, and that she was obliged to take refuge in the 
streets.^^ 

In the manuscripts of Lady Fanshawe, how evident is 
the fact of spectral prophecy ! Sir Richard Fanshawe 
and his lady were sleeping in a baronial castle in Ire- 
land, surrounded by a moat. At midnight she was 
awoke by a ghostly and fearful screaming ; and, gleam- 
ing before the window in the pale moonlight, a female 
spectre hovered, her light auburn hair dishevelled over 
her shoulders. While the lady looked in mute astonish- 
ment, the spectre vanished, uttering two distinct shrieks. 
Her terrific story was told in the morning to her host, 
who evinced no wonder at the mystery, ^^ Indeed/^ 
quoth he, ^^ I expected this. This was the prophetic 
phantom of our house, the spectre of a lady wedded to 
an ancestor, and drowned by him in the moat from false 
notions of dignity, because she was not of noble blood. 
Since this expiation, the phantom appears before every 
death of my near relations, and one of these died last 
night in my castle.^^ — Here may be the prototype of the 
" White Lady of Avenel." 



26 PROPHECY OF SPECTRES. 

Among the most exalted families we have other con- 
fident records of the recurrence of prophetic phantoms^ 
antecedent to great events. A spectre of this kind 
formed a part of the household establishment of the 
Macleans. During the peninsular war, at the moment 
that the head of the clan died at Lisbon, this wraith 
was seen to ride screaming along the shore in Scot- 
land. 

Arise Evans, in a 12mo. tract, ^^ sold at his house in 
Long Alley in Blackfriars in 1653,^^ entitled "An Echo 
from Heaven,'^ foretold the restoration of Charles II. ; 
and his true prophecy was based on the vision of a 
young face with a crown on, appearing after the shades 
of Fairfax and of Cromwell. 

There is an incident in Roman history so impressive 
in its catastrophe, so exact in its periods, that few, I 
think, will deny the inspiration. At the moment that 
Stephanus stabbed Domitian in his palace at Rome, the 
philosopher ApoUonius Tyaneus, in his school at 
Ephesus, exclaimed : " Courage, Stephanus ! strike the 
tyrant home ! ^^ and a minute after, when Parthenius 
completed this homicide^ he added, "he suffers for his 
crimes — he dies.^^ 

I have slightly sketched these illustrations, and I 
presume to term them prophecies. There are others 
so complex, yet so complete in every part, as to con- 
vert, I might hope, even the unbelief of Evelyn. To 
the relations of Sir Walter and Dr. Abercrombie, I will 
add one from Moreton, in his " Essay on Apparitions :" 
^^ The Reverend D. Scott, of Broad Street, was sitting 
alone in his study. On a sudden the phantom of an 
old gentleman, dressed in a black velvet gown, and full 
bottom wig, entered, and sat himself down in a chair 
opposite to the doctor. The visitor informed him of a 
dilemma in which his grandson, who lived in the west 
country, was placed, by the suit of his nephew for the 

6 



PROPHECY OF SPECTRES. 27 

recovery of an estate. This suit would be successful, 
unless a deed of conveyance was found, which had been 
hidden in an old chest in a loft of the house. On his 
arrival at this house, he learned that his grandson had 
dreamed of this visit, and that his grandfather was 
coming to aid him in the search. The deed was found 
in a false bottom of the old chest, as the vision had 
promised.^^ 

In a letter of Philip, the second Earl of Chesterfield, 
is told the following strange story, which, although not 
a prophecy, cannot be within the pale of our philosophy. 
" On a morning in 1652, the earl saw a thing in white, 
like a standing sheet, within a yard of his bedside. 
He attempted to catch it, but it slid to the foot of the 
bed, and he saw it no more. His thoughts turned to 
his lady, who was then at Networth, with her father, 
the Earl of Northumberland. On his arrival at Net- 
worth, a footman met him on the stairs, with a packet 
directed to him from his wife, whom he found with 
Lady Essex her sister, and Mrs. Ramsey. He was 
asked why he returned so suddenly. He told his 
motive ; and on perusing the letters in the packet, he 
found that his lady had written to him requesting his 
return, for she had seen a thing in white, with a black 
face, by her bedside. These apparitions were seen by 
the earl and countess, at the same moment, when they 
were forty miles asunder .^^ 

The miraculous spirit which the influence of Joan of 
Arc infused into the desponding hearts of the French 
army, is writ on the page of history. Before her pro- 
position for the inauguration of Charles VII. at Rheims, 
she heard a celestial voice in her prayer, '' Fille, va, va ! 
je seray a ton ayde — va P^ and her revelation of secrets 
to the king, which he thought were locked within his 
own bosom, raised in the court implicit belief in her 
inspiration. 



28 PROPHECY OF SPECTRES. 

And now, Evelyn, I ask you, 

" Can such things be, 
And overcome us Hke a summer cloud, 
Without our special wonder V 

Ere you smile at my phantasie, and overwhelm me 
with doubts and solutions, I prithee let me counsel 
your philosophy. Dig to a certain depth in the field of 
science, and you may find the roots and the gold dust 
of knowledge : penetrate deeper, and you will strike 
against the granite rock, on which rest the cold and 
profitless reasonings of the sceptic. 

Cast. You look on me, Astrophel, as on a bending 
proselyte. Yet, sooth to tell, it may be difficult to 
convert me, although I am half won to romance already 
by the witch-thoughts of him who gilded the science of 
the heart and mind, with all the iridescent charm of 
poesy ; an unprofessing philosopher, yet with marvellous 
insight of human hearts, — my own loved Shakspere. 
An you listen to my Lord Lyttelton, he will tell you, 
in his '^ Dialogues of the Dead,^^ that ^^ in the annihila- 
tion of our globe, were Shakspere^s works preserved, 
the whole science of man's nature might still be read 
therein.'' And so beautifully are his sketches of the 
heart and the fancy blended withal, that we hang with 
equal delight on the mystic philosophy of Hamlet, the 
witchcraft of Mab, and Ariel, and Oberon, with their 
golden wreaths of gay blossoms, as on the dying visions 
of Katherine, as pure and holy as the vesper-breathings 
of a novice. Yet the shade of superstition never dark- 
ened the brow of Shakspere. Therefore, plume not 
yourself on your hope of conquest, Astrophel : Evelyn 
may win me yet. Philosophy may frown on the visions 
of an enthusiast, while she doth grace her pages with a 
poet's dream. But you will not wear the willow, 
Astrophel : there is a beam of pity for you in the eyes 
of yon pensive Ida. 



PROPHECY OF SPECTRES. 29 

Ida. You are a witch^ Castaly. Yet / have as little 
faith in the quaint stories of Astrophel. A mystery 
must be purified and chastened by sacred solemnity, 
ere it may be blended with the contemplation of holy 
study. And yet there is an arch voluptuary, Boccacio, 
the coryphaeus of a loose band of novelists, who has 
stained a volume by his profane union of holiness and 
passion. The scenes of his Decameron are played 
amidst the raging of the plague, by flaunting youths 
and maidens, but that moment arisen from the solem- 
nity of a cathedral prayer ! 

AsTR. You will call up the shade of Valdarfar, Ida, 
that idol of the Roxburghe club, and printer of the 
Decameron 

Ida. If he appear, he shall vanish at a word, Astro- 
phel. Yet we may not lightly yield the influence of 
special visitations, even in our own days, when solemn 
belief is chastened by holy motives^ and becomes the 
spring of living waters. Even the taint of superstition 
may be almost sanctified on such a plea; and Baxter 
may be forgiven half his credulity when he wrote his 
^^ Saints' Rest,'' and the '^ Essay on Apparitions," to 
convert the sceptics of London, who, in the dearth of 
signs and wonders, expressed their willingness to believe 
the soul's immortality, if they had proofs of ghostly 
visitations. 

/ will myself even quote a mystery, (I believe re- 
corded in Sandys's Ovid,) for the sake of the moral 
which it bears. It is the legend of "^ The Room of the 
Ladyes Figure :" whether it be a tale of Bavaria, or a 
mere paraphrase from the Saxon Sabinus, I know not. 

This is the story of Otto, a Bavarian gentleman, of 
passionate nature, mourning for his wife. On one of 
his visits to her tomb, a mournful voice, which mur- 
mured, *' A blessed evening, sir !" came o'er his ear ; and 
while his eyes fell on the form of a young chorister, he 



30 PROPHECY OF SPECTRES. 

placed a letter in his hands^ and vanished. His wonder 
was extreme^ while he read this mysterious despatch^ 
which was addressed ^^ To my dear husband, who sor- 
rows for his wife/^ and signed, ''^This, with a warm 
hand, from the living Bertha/^ and appointing an inter- 
view in the public walk. Thither, on a beautiful 
evening, sped the Bavarian, and there, among the 
crowd, sat a lady covered by a veil. With a trembling 
voice he whispered ^^ Bertha,^^ when she arose, and, 
with her warm and living arm on his, returned to his 
once desolate home. There were odd thoughts, sur- 
mises, and wonderings, passing among the friends of 
Otto, and suspicions of a mock funeral and a solemn 
cheat; but all subsided as time stole over, and their 
wedded hfe was without a cloud : until a paroxysm of 
his rage one fatal day was vented on the lady, who 
cried, ^^ This to me ! what if the world knew all V — -with 
this broken sentence she vanished from the room. In 
her chamber, whither the search led, erect, as it were 
gazing on the fire, her form stood; but when they 
looked on it in front, there was a headless hood, and 
the clothes were standing as if enveloping a form, but 
no body was there ! Need I say, that a thrill of horror 
crept through all at the mystery, and a fear at the 
approach of Otto, who, though deeply penitent, was 
deserted by all but a graceless reprobate, his companion, 
and his almoner to many a stranger, who knew not the 
unhallowed source of bounty ? 

That belief cannot be an error, which associates 
divine thoughts with the events of human life. I re- 
member, as I was roaming over the wild region of 
Snowdonia, we sat above the valley and the lakes of 
Nant Gwinant, on which the red ridge of Clwd Coch 
threw a broad and purple shadow, while over Moel 
Elion and Myneth Mawr, the sun was bathed in a 
flood of crimson light. The Welch guide was looking 



PROPHECY OF SPECTRES. 31 

down in deep thought on Llyn Gwinant; and, with 
a tear in his eye, he told us a pathetic story of two 
young pedestrians, who were benighted among the 
mountains, on their ascent from Beddgelert. They 
had parted company in the gloom of the evening, and 
each was alone in a desart. On a sudden, the voice of 
one of them was distinctly heard by the other, in the 
direction of the gorge which bounds the pass of Llan- 
beris, as if encouraging him to proceed. The wanderer 
followed its sound, and at length escaped from this 
labyrinth of rocks, and arrived safely at Capel Currig. 
In the morning, his friend^s body was found lying far 
behind the spot where the phantom voice was first 
heard, and away from the course of their route. Was 
this a special spirit, a solemn instance of friendship 
after death, as if the phantom had been endowed with 
supernatural power, and become the guardian angel of 
his friend ; or the special whisper of the Deity in the 
ear of the living ? A belief in this spiritual visitation 
is often the consolation of pure Christianity, for *^^the 
shadow of God is light V^ With some the hope of 
heaven rests on it ; and holy men have thought, that 
the presence of a spirit may even sanctify the being 
which it approaches with an emanation of its own 
holiness. Nay, do we not witness a blessing like this 
in the common walks of life ; as in that beautiful story 
(told by the Bishop of Gloucester) of the vision of her 
dead mother, by the daughter of Sir James Lee, in 
1662? 

Is not the effect of these visitations, to a chastened 
mind, ever fraught with good? It may be merely a 
wisdom or a virtue in decision ; as when my Lord 
Herbert, of Cherbury, prayed to God to declare 
whether he should publish his book "De Veritate;^' 
he heard a gentle voice from heaven, which answered 
his prayer, with a solemn approval of his design. It 



32 PROPHECY OF SPECTRES. 

may be the checking of our pride of Hfe^ or our self- 
glory for success ; a divine lesson that may counsel us 
against worldly wisdom^ in this golden precept^ ^^ Seek 
to be admired by angels rather than by men/^ So that 
complete conversion may follow the vision of a spirit. 
Doddridge has given us the stories of Colonel Gardiner 
and the Rev. Vincent Perronet ; and in the '^ Baronii 
Annales^^ we read of Ticinus^ a departed friend of 
Michael Mercator^ then a profane student in philo- 
sophy, who, according to a preconcerted promise, 
appeared to him at the moment that he died, afar off 
in Florence. The vision so alarmed his conscience, 
that he at once became a devout student in divinity. 

In the city of Nantes, as we see it written by William 
of Malmsbury, in the twelfth century, dwelt two young 
ecclesiastics. Between them was a solemn compact, 
that within thirty days after the death of either, his 
shade should appear, sleeping or waking, to the sur- 
vivor, to declare if the true psychology was the doctrine 
of Plato, or of the Epicureans ; if the soul survived the 
body, or vanished into air. The shade appeared , like 
one dying, while the spirit passeth away ; and dis- 
coursing, like the ghost of Hamlet's father, of the pains 
of infernal punishments, stretched forth his ulcerous 
arm, and asked if " it seemed as Hght ;'' then, dropping 
the caustic humour from his arm on the temples of 
the living witness, which were corroded by the drop, 
he warned him of the same penalties if he entered not 
into holy orders, in the city of Rennes. This solemn 
warning worked his conversion, and he became a pious 
and exemplaiy devotee, under the holy wings of Saint 
Melanius. 

In these instances, is not the special influence of the 
Deity evident ? and why will our profane wisdom stiU 
draw us from our leaning to this holy creed, causing us 
to '^ forsake the fountains of living water, and hew out 



PROPHECY OF SPECTRES. 33 

unto ourselves broken cisterns that can hold no 
water V^ 

How awfully beautiful is the Mosaic picture of the 
first mortal communion with the Creator, when the 
vision of God was heard by Adam and Eve, walking in 
the garden in the cool of the day ; or, when the Deity 
appeared to Abraham and to Moses, and his word came 
to Manoah, and to Noah, with the blessings of a 
promise; or, when his angels of light descended to 
console, and to relieve from chains and from fire ; or, 
when the angel of the Lord first appears in the vision 
to Cornelius ; and the trance, or rather the counterpart 
of the vision, comes over St. Peter, at Joppa ; and the 
arrival of the men, sent by the centurion, confirms the 
miracle : and then, the last sublime revealings of the 
Apocalypse. You will not call it presumption, Evelyn, 
that I adduce these holy records to confirm our modern 
faith ; and ask you, why philosophy will yet chain our 
thoughts to earth, and affirm our visions to be a mean- 
less phantasy ? 



i 



ILLUSION OF SPECTRES. 



More strange than true. I never may believe 
These antique fables." 

Midsummer Night's Dream. 



Ev. Your holy thoughts^ fair Ida^ are but an echo of 
my own. The grand causes and awful judgments of 
the inspired aeras of the world prove the truth by the 
necessity of the miracles^ not only in answer to the 
Pharisees and Sadducees, who required a sign, but even 
before the eyes of the early disciples^ whose apathetic 
hearts soon forgot the miracles, and their divine Master 
himself; for, as he was walking on the sea, ^^at the 
fourth watch, they thought he was a spirit.^^ 

I would fain, however_, adopt the precept of Lord 
Bacon, to waive theology in my discussions and my 
illustrations, because I am unwilling to blend the sacred 
truths of spiritual futurity with arguments on the im- 
perfection of material existence. 

In the abstract spiritual evidence of all modem 
superstition, I have little faith. These records are 
scarcely more to be confided in than fairy tales, or fic- 
tions like those of many antique sages : as the rabbins, 
that ^' the cherubim are the wisest, the seraphim the 
most amiable, of angels f' or of the visionary Jew of 



ILLUSION OF SPECTRES. 35 

Burgundy^ whom, in 1641, John Evelyn spoke with in 
Holland, — " He told me that, when the Messias came, 
all the ships, barkes, and vessels of Holland should, by 
the powere of certaine strange whirle winds, be loosed 
from their ankers, to convey their brethren and tribes 
to the holy citty/^ Or even that of Melancthon, that 
his sable majesty once appeared to his own aunt in the 
shape of her husband, and grasping her hand, so 
scorched and shrivelled it, that it remained black ever 
after. These are fair samples of credulity. 

You will call me presumptuous, but, believe me, 
Astrophel, it is superstition which is presumptuous and 
positive, and not philosophy ; for credulity believes on 
profane tradition, or the mere assertion of a mortal. 
But the glory of philosophy is humility ; for they who, 
like Newton, and Playfair, and WoUaston, and Davy, 
look deeply into the wonder and beauty of creation, 
will be ever humbled by the contemplation of their own 
being, — an atom of the universe. A philosopher can- 
not be proud ; for, like Socrates, he confesses his igno- 
rance, because he is ever searching for truth. He 
cannot be a sceptic ; for when he has dived into the 
deeps of science, his thoughts will ascend the more 
toward the Deity : he has grasped all that science can 
afford him, and there is nothing left for his mighty 
mind but divine things and holy hopes. Philosophy is 
not confident either, because she ever waits for more 
experience and more weight of testimony. 

How often, Astrophel, must we be deceived, like 
children, by distance, until experience teaches us truth. 
By this we know that the turrets of distant towers are 
high, yet they dwindle in our sight to the mere vanish- 
ing point, as the child believes them. Such is the power 
of demonstration. 

The ancient polytheists could not be other than 
idolaters and believers in prophecy. The rabbins were 

d2 



36 ILLUSION OF SPECTRES. 

schooled, in addition to the books of Moses, in those of 
Zoroaster, in the Talmud, which was the magic volume 
of the Jews, and the Takurni, or Persian Almanac, the 
annual expositor of natural and judicial astrology in 
the clime of the sun. 

The sages who lived immediately after the light of 
Christianity had been shed over the Holy Land, had 
not forgotten the miracles wrought in the holy city; 
but they profaned Omnipotence by making them pur- 
poseless. 

Superstition then formed a part of the national creed : 
even a mere word, as ^' Epidamnum,^^ they dreaded to 
pronounce, as it was of such awful import ; and credu- 
lity and blind faith in the prophetic truth of omens and 
oracles prevailed. We read in Montfaucon, that twelve 
hundred believed in this miracle of Virgil : 

" Captus a Romanis invisihiliter exiit, ivitque Neapolim :" 

that he rendered himself invisible to the Romans and 
escaped to Naples. The influence of this blind infatu- 
ation was the spring of many actions, which, like the 
daring of the Indian fatalist in battle, were vaunted as 
deeds of heroic self-martyrdom. 

Marcus Curtius, the trembling of the earth having 
opened a chasm in the Roman forum, leaped into it 
on horseback, when the soothsayers declared it would 
not close until the most valuable thing in the city was 
flung into it. And the two Decii offered themselves as 
the willing sacrifice, to ensure a victory for their coun- 
try, — one in the war with the Latins, the other in that 
of the Etrurians and Umbrians. 

Aristotle and Galen were exceptions. It is true, that 
Socrates believed himself under the influence of a 
demon, a sort of delegate from the Deity, — indeed, that 
God willed his death ; for when his friend pressed him 
on his trial to compose his defence, he answered thus : 



ILLUSION OF SPECTRES. 37 

— " The truth is, I was twice going about to make my 
apology, but was twice withheld by my demon/^ But 
remember, Astrophel, the Greek word which the philo- 
sopher employed, to daijioviov, and you will rather 
confess that it implies the Deity, as if some divine in- 
spiration taught him ; or perchance, as some of his 
commentators believe, this invisible monitor was merely 
the impersonation of the faculty of judgment, and of 
that deep knowledge and forethought with which his 
mind was fraught. 

Cicero, too, is said to have written arguments to 
prove the divine origin of the oracle of Delphi ; but it 
is well believed by classics, that Addison has, in his 
letter in the Spectator, mistaken Cicero for Cato. 

Recollect, Astrophel, this is an old point with us, 
when we were reading the subject of Auguries, in his 
book, " De Divinatione,^^ in which he wonders " that 
one soothsayer can look another in the face without 
laughing f and you remember Lucian ridicules ghost- 
seeing as the whim of imagination. You have cited 
Pliny. True, — Pliny is an interesting story-teller ; 
although he warps somewhat the phantoms of his 
dreams. But what is the first sentence of his letter to 
Sura? — " I am very desirous to know your opinion 
concerning spectres ; whether you believe them to have 
a real existence, and are a sort of divinities, or are only 
the visionary impressions of a terrified imagination.^^ 

And what did Johnson confess ? — That " this is a 
question, which, after five thousand years, is still un- 
decided ; a question, whether in theology or philosophy, 
one of the most important that can come before the 
human understanding." So you see the vaunted creed 
of Johnson was at least like the coffin of Mahomet, 
poised between the affirmative and negative of the pro- 
position. The sage was a strict spiritualist, and, as 



38 ILLUSION OF SPECTRES. 

Boswell says^ "wished for more evidence of spirit in 
opposition to materialism/^ On some points he was 
also mighty superstitious, and constantly affirmed his 
conviction that he should himself run mad. This 
augury failed, and therefore the prophetic nature of 
second sight needs more convincing proof than the 
creed of Johnson. — In his own words, ^^ Foresight is 
not prescience.'^ 

As to the second sight of Caledon, he confesses that, 
although in his journey he searched diligently, he saw 
but one seer, and he was grossly ignorant, as indeed 
they usually are. '' He came away only willing to be- 
lieve ;'' the learned and literary even in the far He- 
brides, especially the clergy, being altogether sceptics. 

In the consideration of this question in the study of 
psychology, it has been an error to conclude that, be- 
cause in some certain works arguments are adduced by 
imaginary characters, in support of the appearance of 
departed spirits : such was the positive belief of their 
authors. If then, for instance, the arguments of Imlac, 
in Rasselas, which aim at the proof of spectral reality, 
or rather the appearance of departed beings, be adduced 
as an evidence of Johnson's own belief, I might observe 
that it were equally rational to identify the minds or 
dispositions of Massinger and Sir Giles Overreach, — of 
Shakspere and lago. 

Like the Catholic priesthood, who rule the ignorant 
by the force of superstition, leaders have been induced 
to profess the possession of this faculty, to overawe their 
proselytes by their own deeper knowledge ; as Numa 
vaunted his intimacy with the nymph Egeria at her 
fountain. 

For this purpose, even the Corsican general, Pascal 
PaoU, assumed the profession of a seer, and the mystery 
of his prescience was on the lips of every Corsican. 



ILLUSION OF SPECTRES. 39 

When Boswell asked, if the fulfilments of his prophecies 
wei-e frequent, a Corsican grasped a bundle of his hair, 
and whispered, '' Tante, tante, signore V^ 

But I will not play the dullard, Astrophel, while you, 
with your legendary romance, charm the listening ears 
of ladyes fayre. I will have my turn of story-telling, 
(avoiding the myriads of queer tales, told by supersti- 
tious and unlettered visionaries, on the look out for 
marvels, by servant maids and rustics, and silly people, 
the chief actors in ghost stories). And therefore, in the 
face of these negative conclusions, even of Johnson, 
hear one unparalleled story, culled from the rich trea- 
sury of Master Aubrey^s " Miscellanies.^^ It was of an 
earl of Caithness, who, desirous of ascertaining the dis- 
tance of a vessel which was laden with wine for his 
cellars, proposed a question to a seer. The answer was, 
'' At the distance of four hour^s sail.^^ It may be some 
doubt was expressed of the truth of this oracle ; for, to 
prove his gift of clairvoyance, he laid before the earl 
the cap of a seaman in the ship, which he had that 
moment taken off his head. The vessel duly arrived, 
and lo ! a sailor claimed the cap in the seer's hand, 
affirming that, four hours before, it had been blown 
from his head by the gale. Is not this the very acme 
of effrontery ? 

Carolan, the inspired bard of Erin, confessed he could 
not compose a planxty for a certain lady of Sligo, even 
when he made an effort to celebrate her wondrous 
beauty ; and one day in despair he threw away his harp 
and fell into a lament, that some evil genius was hover- 
ing over him : from his harp strings, (in contrast with 
those of Anacreon,) he could sweep only a mournful 
music, and he thence prophesied^ and that truly, the 
death of the lady within the year. 

Dubuison, a dentist of Edinburgh, on the day pre- 
ceding the death of President Blair, met him in the 



40 ILLUSION OF SPECTRES. 

street, and was addressed by the president with a pecu- 
liar expression. On the day before the death of Lord 
Melville, the dentist was met by him exactly on the 
same spot, and accosted by my lord in the very same 
words. On the death of Lord Melville, Dubuison ex- 
claimed that he should be the third. He became imme- 
diately indisposed, and died within an hour. 

In the " Miscellanies^^ of Aubrey, we read, that John 
Evelyn related to the Royal Society the case of the 
curate of Deptford, Mr. Smith, who, in November, 
1679, was sick of an ague. To this reverend clerk ap- 
peared the phantom of a master of arts, with a white 
wand in his hand, who promised that if he lay on his 
back three hours, from ten to one, his ague would leave 
him. And this prophecy was also to the very letter 
fulfilled. 

Napoleon, when he was marching upon Acre, had a 
djerme, or Nile boat, with some of his troops, destroyed ; 
the boat^s name was Ultalie ; and from this he said, 
'^ Italy is lost to France.^^ And so it was. 

During the siege of Jerusalem, for seven days a man 
paraded round the walls, exclaiming with a solemn 
voice, " Woe to Jerusalem V and on the seventh day lie 
added, ^^Woe to Jerusalem, and myself P'' When, at 
the moment of this anathema, a missile from the enemy 
destroyed him. 

Do you wonder that the prophecy of Monsieur Cazotte 
of his own decapitation, recorded in his " CEuvres de 
M. de la Harpe,^^ should have been fulfilled? for in 
1788, when this prophecy was uttered, the guillotine 
was daily reeking with patrician blood ; and the Duchess 
of Grammont, Vicq d^Azyr, Condorcet, and Cazotte 
himself, among a host of others, were dragged to the 
scaffold. 

When dark events were overclouding Poland, to 
Sorvenski the warrior, a convert to magnetism, it was 



ILLUSION OF SPECTRES. 41 

imparted in a vision^ that Warsaw should be deluged 
in blood, and that he should fall in battle. In two 
years these forebodings were fulfilled. 

It is known that Lord Falkland and Archbishop 
Williams both warned Charles I. of his fate ; but it 
required no ghost to tell him that. And I have known 
many deeply interested in the fate of absent friends; 
and knowing their circumstances and locality, so pro- 
phesy, that they seemed to have all the faculty of clair- 
voyance. The young ladies of Britain, during the 
Peninsular war, were often dreaming of the apparitions 
of their lovers, perhaps at the hour of their expiring on 
the field of battle : coincidences that must make a deep 
impression on sensitive minds. Were I justified in 
divulging secrets and confessions, I might relate some 
curious stories of these inauspicious dreams. 

At the moment of the duel between Mr. Pitt and 
Mr. Tierney, on Wimbledon Common, a lady of fashion 
in London exclaimed, " This is the important mo- 
ment V' 

Oliver Cromwell had reclined on his couch, and ex- 
treme fatigue forbad the coming on of sleep. On a 
sudden his curtains opened, and a gigantic female form 
imparted to him, that he should be the greatest man in 
England. The puritanical faith and ambition of Crom- 
well might have raised, during the distracted state of 
the kingdom, something even beyond this ; and who 
may decide, if the spectre had whispered, " Thou shalt 
be king hereafter,^^ that the protector would have re- 
fused the crown, as, on the feast of Lupercal, it had 
been refused by Caesar ? 

'^ General Oglethorpe,^^ writes Boswell, " told us that 
Prendergast, an officer in the Duke of Marlborough's 
army, had mentioned to many of his friends, that he 
should die on a particular day. Upon that day a battle 
took place with the French ; and after it was over, and 



42 ILLUSION OF SPECTRES. 

Prendergast was still alive, his brother officers, while 
they were yet in the field, jestingly asked him, where 
was his prophecy now ? Prendergast gravely answered, 
^ I shall die, notwithstanding what you see/ Soon after- 
wards there came a shot from a French battery, to 
which the orders for a cessation of arms had not yet 
reached, and he was killed upon the spot ?' 

But can these shallow stories be cited as prophecies 7 
The links in the chain of causation are evident, and the 
veriest sceptic cannot doubt their sequence, where there 
was so strong a probability. It is merely by reflecting 
on the past and judging the future by analogy. Natural 
events of human actions have laws to govern them, and 
there is seldom foresight without the reflection on these 
laws. Lord Mansfield, when asked how the French 
revolution would end, replied, " It is an event without 
a precedent, and therefore without a prophecy.^' 

AsTR. Then you do not believe, where you cannot 
develope the causes of events. Like all rational philo- 
sophers, you must have demonstrative proof. In which 
class of sceptics shall I enrol you, Evelyn ? — As a 
proselyte of Aristotle, who will deny not only the exist- 
ence of spirits, but affirm heaven and hell to be a fable, 
and that the world is self-existent ; or with the Epicu- 
reans, who believed the impious doctrine of blind chance, 
— that the sun and stars were vapours, and the soul 
perishable ; or with the modern lights of reason, — Sir 
Isaac Newton, who confessed the Paradise Lost to be a 
fine poem, though it proved nothing ; or the Abbe Lau- 
guerne, who, for the self-same reason, despised the 
brilliancy of Racine and Corneille ; or with the Sad- 
ducees themselves, who denied both prophecy and 
spirit ? 

Ev. Perhaps the Sadducees might have referred visions 
to the right cause, for phantoms differ little from Lockers 
"substance which thinks.^^ But the mere metaphy- 

6 



ILLUSION OP SPECTRES. 43 

sician blinks the question (as Lord Bacon does that of 
experimental chemistry, — ^^ Vix unum experimentum 
adduci potest quod ad hominum statum levandum et 
juvandum spectat^') ; thus wofuUy depreciating the pro- 
gress of chemical science, as if the discoveries of WoUas- 
ton, of Davy, of Dalton, and of Faraday were fruitless. 
Remember, modern philosophers are not like Xenophon, 
who (says Socrates) called all fools who differed from 
his opinion. 

Even Baxter confesses the frequency of imposture in 
ghost stories, yet leans to the belief of all which he caTi- 
not account for. 

Now if philosophy had not doubted, science would 
be stationary. We might still believe, with Heraclitus, 
that the sun was only a foot in breadth ; or, with Co- 
pernicus, that it revolved in its orbit, while the earth 
was at rest. Remember, Astrophel, the way to the 
temple of Science is through the portals of doubt : it is 
a mark of weakness, "jurare in verba magistri.^' Even 
the prince philosopher of Denmark doubted the pro- 
phetic truth of his father^s ghost on its mere appear- 
ance — (^'^The spirit I have seen maybe a devil,^^) — until 
the scene of the play, and the stricken conscience of the 
king, and then only, he believed that " it was an honest 
ghost.^^ 

^^ It is true,'^ as Lord Chesterfield wrote in 1653, " I 
know that God can make any such things to appear, 
but because he can, therefore to conclude that he doth, 
is ill argued : and though divers books are full of such 
stories, yet the soberest sort of men in all ages have 
doubted the truth of them.'^ I might add to these the 
visions which have been so strangely warped to inter- 
pret a subsequent event. Those of William Rufus, and 
Innocent the Fourth, and Henry the Second of France, 
and a thousand others from ancient history, between 
the assumed prophecy and fulfilment of which, there is 



44 ILLUSION OF SPECTRES. 

about as much truth as when Lady Seymour dreamt of 
having found a nest of nine finches^ and soon after was 
married to Finch^ Earl of Winchelsea^ and was blessed 
with a brood of nine children. 

With the coincidences of life we have all been struck ; 
the ignorant and timid and superstitious among us with 
wonder : but how comparatively trivial are these tiny 
drops in the wide ocean of events^ and what myriads of 
dreams and visions from which there are no results ! 

A simple incident occurred to me in the autumn of 
last year, which was so complete in its association as to 
be for a moment startling to myself. 

Influenced by a sort of veneration for the memory of 
the good Gilbert White of Selborne, I made a pilgrim- 
age to that calm apd rustic tillage, so exquisitely em- 
bosomed among green meads, and beech-crowned chalk 
hills, and forests embrowned with heath and fern. 

On my entrance to the village, I was reflecting on 
the " idiot boy*^ who fed on honey which he pressed 
from the bees he caught, when lo ! at the first door a 
figure, which grinned at me, and mowed and muttered, 
but without the slightest verbal utterance. He was an 
idiot, but not Whitens idiot ; yet a visionary mind might 
readily for a moment believe it to be a phantom of the 
foolish boy, immortalized, as it were, in the "^ Natural 
History of Selborne.^^ 

There was an imposing occurrence also, during the 
funeral procession of Sir Walter Scott to Dryburgh. A 
halt took place for many minutes (in consequence of an 
accident) precisely on the summit of the hill at Bemer- 
side, where a beautiful prospect opens, to contemplate 
which, Sir Walter was ever wont to rein up his horse. 

"In 1811,^^ writes Lord Byron in a letter to Mr. 
Murray, ^' my old school and form fellow Peel, the Irish 
secretar}^, told me he saw me in St. Jameses Street ; I 
was then in Turkey. A day or two afterwards he pointed 



ILLUSION OF SPECTRES. 45 

out to his brother a person across the way^ and said, 
' There is the man I took for Byron :' his brother an- 
swered, ^ Why, it is Byron, and no one else/ I was at 
this time seen to write my name in the Palace Book. I 
was then ill of a malaria fever. If I had died, here 
would have been a ghost story /^ 

While Lord Byron was at Colonna, his dervish Tahiri, 
as we read in his notes to the " Giaour,^^ who professed 
the faculty of second hearing, prophesied an attack of 
the Mainotes as they passed a certain perilous defile, 
but nothing came of it : the attack was not made ; and 
it is probable that some ringing in the ears of the 
dervish, and a knowledge that the defile was a haunt of 
brigands, were the springs of this notion. 

And there are events, too, which have all the intensity 
of romance and seem involved in the deepest mystery, 
and which, like Washington Irving^s tale of the '^^ Spectre 
Bridegroom,^^ assume all the air of the supernatural, 
until the enigma is solved, and then we cry, '^ How clear 
the solution ! '' 

Among the myriads of complained mysteries in the 
north, I will cite that of the farmer of Teviotdale, who, 
in the gloom of evening, saw on the wall of a cemetery 
a pale form throwing about her arms, and mowing and 
chattering to the moon. With not a little terror he 
spurred his horse, but as he passed the phantom it 
dropped from its perch, and, like Tam o^ Shanter^s 
Nannie, fixing itself on the croup, clasped him tightly 
round the waist with arms of icy coldness. He arrived 
at home ; with a thrill of horror exclaimed, " Tak afF the 
ghaist !" and was carried shivering to bed. And what 
was the phantom ? A maniac widow, on her distracted 
pilgrimage to the grave of her husband, for whom she 
had indeed mistaken the ill-fated farmer. 

The president of a literary club at Plymouth being 
very ill during its session, the chair out of respect was 



46 ILLUSION OF SPECTRES. 

left vacant. While they were sittings his apparition, 
in a white di'ess, glided in and took formal possession 
of the chair. His face was " wan hke the cauliflower ;^^ 
he bowed in silence to the company, carried his empty 
glass to his lips, and solemnly retired. They went to 
his house, and learned that he had just expired ! The 
strange event was kept a profound secret, until the 
nurse confessed an her death-bed that she had fallen 
asleep, that the patient had stolen out, and, ha^dng the 
pass-key of the garden, had returned to his bed by a 
short path before the deputation, anS had died a few 
seconds after. 

In the records of his life, by Taylor, we read of a 
trick of the great actor, who, like Brinsley Sheridan, 
had an inkling for practical jokes. It was on a profes- 
sional \asit of Dr. Moncey. '^ Gamck was announced 
for King Lear on that night, and when Moncey saw 
him in bed he expressed his surprise, and asked him 
if the play was to be changed. Garrick was dressed, 
but had his night-cap on, and the quilt was drawn over 
him to give him the appearance of being too ill to rise. 
Dr. M. expressed his surprise, as it was time for Garrick 
to be at the theatre to dress for King Lear. Garrick, in 
a languid and whining tone, told him that he was too 
much indisposed to perform himself, but that there was 
an actor named Man', so like him in figure, face, and 
voice, and so admirable a mimic, that he had ventured 
to trust the part to him, and was sure the audience 
would not perceive the difference. Pretending that he 
began to feel worse, he requested Moncey to leave the 
room in order that he might get a little sleep, but 
desired him to attend the theatre, and let him know the 
result. As soon as the Doctor quitted the room, Garrick 
jumped out of bed and hastened to the theatre. Moncey 
attended the performance. Having left Garrick in bed, 
he was bewildered by the scene before him, sometimes 



ILLUSION OF SPECTRES. 47 

doubting and sometimes being astonished at the resem- 
blance between Garrick and Marr. At length, finding 
that the audience were convinced of Garrick's identity, 
Moncey began to suspect a trick had been practised 
upon him, and instantly hurried to Garrick^s house at 
the end of the play ; but Garrick was too quick for him, 
and was found by Moncey in the same state of illness/^ 
These are truths which are indeed stranger than fiction. 

Were a miracle once authenticated, our scepticism 
might cease, but we cannot be convinced of super- 
natural agency till something be done or known which 
could not be so by common means, or which through 
the medium of deception or contrivance imposes on the 
mind such belief; of which impression Alston the pain- 
ter once told Coleridge a melancholy story. ^Twas of 
a youth at Cambridge, who dressed himself up in 
white as a ghost to frighten his companion, having first 
drawn the bullets from pistols which he kept at the 
head of his bed. As the apparition glided by his bed, 
the youth laughed and cried out, ^^ Vanish ! I fear you 
not.^^ The ghost did not obey him, and at length he 
reached a pistol and fired at it, when, seeing the ghost 
immoveable and invulnerable as he supposed, a belief 
in a spirit instantly came over his mind, and convulsion 
succeeding, his extreme terror was soon followed by his 
death. 

I have read (I believe in Clarendon), that the decapi- 
tation of Charles I. was augured {after death) from his 
coronation robes being of white velvet instead of purple ; 
and this it was remembered was the colour of a victim^s 
death-garment ; and in Blennerhasset^s history of James 
II., that the crown at his coronation tottered on his 
head, and at the same moment the royal arms fell from 
the altar of some London church. All this is too 
childish to be spoken of seriously, and reminds me of 
the General Montecuculi, who on some saint^s day had 



48 ILLUSION OF SPECTRES. 

ordered bacon in his omelette. At the moment it was 
served^ a peal of thunder shook his house^ when he ex- 
claimed^ " Voila bien du bruit pour une omelette V' 

We wonder not to find Lily^ into whose moth-eaten 
tomes I have sometimes peeped for amusement^ prating 
thus of consequences. There is an old paper of his 
graced with " the effigies of Master Praise God Bare- 
bones/^ where^ among other judgments, the blindness of 
Milton is recorded as a penal infliction of the Deity^ for 
^^ that he writ two books against the kings^ and Salma- 
sius his defence of kings.^^ But we do wonder at such 
a weakness in Sir Walter Raleigh^ that he should thus 
write in his History of the Worlds — ^' The strangest 
thing I have read of in this kind being certainly true, 
was, that the night before the battle of Novara, all the 
dogs which followed the French army ran from them to 
the Switzers ; and lo ! next morning the Switzers were 
beaten by the French.^' 

And yet a greater wonder is, that so many solemn 
stories should have crept into our national legends, in 
which there is no truth : in which philosophers and 
divines have very innocently combined to bewilder us. 

There is an assumed incident associated with a melan- 
choly event in the noble family of Lansdowne, most 
illustrative of my observation. In the ^^ Literary Re- 
collections'^ of the Rev. Richard Warner, is recorded 
the interesting story of the apparition of Lord William 
Petty, at Bowood, related to Mr. Warner by the Rev. 
Joseph Townsend, rector of Pewsey in Wiltshire, and 
" confirmed by the dying declaration of Dr. Alsop, of 
Calne.'^ 

It is affirmed that Lord William Petty, who was 
under the care of Dr. Priestley, the librarian, and the 
Rev. Mr. Jervis, his tutor, was attacked, at the age of 
seven, with inflammation of the lungs, for which Mr. 
Alsop was summoned to Bowood. After a few days. 



ILLUSION OF SPECTRES. 49 

the young nobleman seemed to be out of danger ; but, 
on a sudden relapse, the surgeon was again sent for in 
the evening. 

^^ It was night before this gentleman reached Bowood 
but an unclouded moon showed every object in unequi-' 
vocal distinctness. Mr. Alsop had passed through the 
lodge-gate, and was proceeding to the house, when, to 
his astonishment, he saw Lord William coming towards 
him, in all the buoyancy of childhood, restored appa- 
rently to health and vigour. ' I am delighted, my dear 
lord,^ he exclaimed, ^ to see you, but, for Heaven^s sake, 
go immediately within doors, — it is death to you to be 
here at this time of night.^ The child made no reply, 
but, turning round, was quickly out of sight. Mr. Al- 
sop, unspeakably surprised, hurried to the house. Here 
all was distress and confusion, for Lord William had 
expired a few minutes before he reached the portico, 

^^ This sad event being with all speed announced to 
the Marquis of Lansdowne, in London, orders were 
soon received at Bowood, for the interment of the 
corpse, and the arrangement of the funeral procession. 
The former was directed to take place at High Wick- 
ham, in the vault which contained the remains of Lord 
William's mother ; the latter was appointed to halt at 
two specified places, during the two nights on which it 
would be on the road. Mr. Jervis and Dr. Priestley 
attended the body. On the first day of the melancholy 
journey, the latter gentleman, who had hitherto said 
little on the subject of the appearance to Mr. Alsop, 
suddenly addressed his companion with considerable 
emotion in nearly these words : ' There are some very 
singular circumstances connected with this event, Mr. 
Jervis, and a most remarkable coincidence between a 
dream of the late Lord William and our present mourn- 
ful engagement. A few weeks ago, as I was passing 



50 ILLUSION OF SPECTRES. 

by his room door one mornings he called me to his bed- 
side, — ^ Doctor/ said he, ^ what is your Christian name?' 
^ Surely/ said I, ' you know it is Joseph/ ' Well, then,' 
replied he, in a lively manner, ' if you are a Joseph, you 
can interpret a dream for me, which I had last night. 
I dreamed. Doctor, that I set out upon a long journey ; 
that I stopped the first night at Hungerford, whither I 
went without touching the ground; that I flew from 
thence to Salt Hill, where I remained the next night ; 
and arrived at High Wickham on the third day, where 
my dear mamma, beautiful as an angel, stretched out 
her arms and caught me within them.' '^Now/ con- 
tinued the Doctor, ^ these are precisely the places where 
the dear child's corpse will remain on this and the suc- 
ceeding night, before we reach his mother's vault, which 
is finally to receive it.' " 

Now here is a tissue of events, as strange as they are 
circumstantial ; and I might set myself to illustrate the 
apparition by the agitated state of Mr. Alsop's mind, 
were it not for the utter fallacy of this mysterious story, 
on which the late Rev. Mr. Jervis, of Brompton, whom 
I knew and esteemed, deemed it essential to publish 
" Remarks," in the year 1831. From these, you will 
learn that Mr. Warner is in error regarding the ^^ ad- 
dress, designation, and age of the Hon. William Gran- 
ville Petty, the nature and duration of his disorder, and 
the name of the place of interment." And then it comes 
out that neither Dr. Priestley nor Mr. Jervis attended 
the funeral, nor conversed at any time on the circum- 
stance. And, regarding Mr. Alsop's death-bed declara- 
tion, Mr. Jervis, who was in his intimate confidence, 
never heard of such a thing until Mr. Warner's volume 
was pointed out to him. 

This strange story, believed by good and wise men, 
involved a seeming mystery, until we read in Mr. Jer- 



ILLUSION OF SPECTRES. 51 

vis's ^^ Remarks/' one simple sentence in reference to 
the gentleman by whom it was first told^ — that '^ the 
enthusiasm of his nature predisposed him to entertain 
some visionary and romantic notions of supernatural 
appearances." 



e2 



PHANTASY FROM MENTAL ASSOCIATION. 



" This is tlie very coinage of your brain : 
This bodiless creation, ecstacy 
Is very cunning in." Hamlet, 



Cast. How delightful to wander thus among the re- 
liques of that age, when her citizens, the colonists of 
Britain, migrated from imperial Rome, and built their 
Venta Silurum, or Caerwent, from the ruins of which 
these now mouldering walls were formed. As we trod 
those pictured pavements of Caerwent beneath the blue 
sky of yesternoon, I felt all the inspiration of Astrophel, 
and a pageantry of Roman patricians seemed to sweep 
along the fragments of those painted tesselae. 

" Lulled in the countless chambers of the brain, 
Our thoughts are link'd by many a hidden chain ; 
Awake but one, and lo ! what myriads rise, 
Each stamps his image as the other flies." 

There is a happy combination of antiquity and sim- 
plicity in this land of Gwent. Almost within the 
shadow of the Roman Caerleon, the Monmouthshire 
peasants, at Easter and Whitsuntide, assemble to plant 
fresh flowers on the graves of their relatives. How I 
love these old customs ! the chanting of the carol at 



PHANTASY FROM MENTAL ASSOCIATION. 53 

Christmas ; its very homeliness so redolent of love and 
friendship : and that quaint old Moresco dance which 
was introduced to England by the noble Katherine of 
Arragon. Then the pastimes of Halloween and Hog- 
many in Scotland, and the Walpurgis night of Germany, 
and the May-day in Ireland, the festival of their patron 
saint, and the Midsummer night when the bealfires cast 
an universal lumination over the fells of the green isle, 
and the still more sacred fire, lighted up in November 
in worship of their social deity, Samhuin, whose potent 
influence charms the warm hearts of all the maids of 
Erin around the winter hearth of their homes. I listen 
unto these pleasures as if they were mine own : as 
children associate all the legends of their school histories 
with themselves and their own time. 

In every spot of this land of Wales the very names of 
the olden time are before us : the romaunt of Prince 
Arthur and his knights is ever present to our fancy, for 
he hath, as on the crag that towers over Edinburgh, a 
seat on many a mountain rock in Wales ; as the Cadair 
Arthur over Crickhowel, and the semicircle on Little 
Doward, and Maen Arthur on the moors of Cardigan. 

AsTR. I never look on scenes like this without the 
echo of that beautiful apostrophe of Johnson, among 
the ruins of lona, whispering in my ear. 

Inspired by such an influence, I have roamed over the 
Isle of Elephanta, and gazed on its gorgeous pagoda 
hewn from the rock, and adorned by gigantic statues 
and mysterious symbols of the same eternal granite : on 
the beauteous excavations of Salsette : on the wonders 
of Elora, and on the classic reliques of Persepolis : on 
the beautiful columns of Palmyra, the Tadmor in the wil- 
derness, where Solomon built his " fenced city ;^' as well 
as those arabesque and gothic temples, the abbeys and 
cathedrals of our own island. I too have almost dared 
to think that superstition and idolatry might be forgiven 



54 PHANTASY FROM MENTAL ASSOCIATION. 

for the splendours of its architecture^ even for the ele- 
vation of those giant blocks of Stonehenge and Abury^ 
the mouldering altars of the druidical priesthood, in the 
city consecrated to their god. 

So do I feel in this court-yard of Chepstow Castle, 
whilom the Est-brig-hoel of Doomsdaye Booke, and in 
later times so blended with English history. See you 
not the Conqueror and his knights in panoply on prancing 
steeds before you? See you not Fitz Osborne and 
Warren, its former lords, loom out upon your sight ? 
And, lo ! the portal opens, and the dungeon of Henry 
Martin, the regicide, yawns like a bottomless pit before 
us. The shade of Charles Stewart rises ; and again the 
phantom of Cromwell, uttering his epithets of scorn, as 
if the wanton puritan were about to dash the ink in the 
face of his colleague as he signed the death-warrant of 
the king. And now the scene changes, and behold the 
doomed one is chained to those massive rings of iron, 
and there with groaning dies. 

Ev. I am most willing that you should thus indulge 
in your wild rhapsody, Astrophel, for it is the happy 
illustration of one potent cause of spectral illusion — 
association. There are few whose minds are not excited 
in some degree when they tread the localities of interest- 
ing events. By memory and its combinations some- 
thing like an inspired vision may often seem to come 
over us — a day-dream. Or, if we have been brooding 
over a subject or gazing on the relics of departed or 
absent love and friendship : or while we stand on a spot 
consecrated by genius, or when we have past the scene of 
a murder, still will association fling around us its vision- 
ary shadows. 

Shortly after the death of Maupertuis, the president 
of the Academy of Berlin, Mr. Gleditsch, the curator of 
natural history, was traversing the hall in solitude, when 
he saw the phantom of the president standing in an 



PHANTASY FROM MENTAL ASSOCIATION. 55 

angle of the room with his eyes intensely fixed on him : 
an effect perfectly explicable by the association of in* 
tense impression of memory in the very arena of the 
president's former dignity. 

You will remember the story of a rich libertine^, told 
by Sir Walter Scott. Whenever he was alone in his 
drawing-room^ he was so haunted by a spectral corps 
de ballet, that the very furniture was, as it were, con- 
verted into phantoms. To release himself from this un- 
welcome intrusion he retired to his country house, and 
here, for a while, he obtained the quiet which he sought. 
But it chanced that the furniture of his town house was 
sent to him in the country, and on the instant that his 
eyes fell on his drawing-room chairs and tables, the 
illusion came afresh on his mind. By the influence of 
association the green figurantes came frisking and 
capering into his room, shouting in his unwilling ears, 
*^^ Here we are ! here we are V 

It is not, however, essential that there be substance 
at all to excite these spectres. Idea alone is sufficient. 

Do you think it strange that a ghost should appear 
fleshless and shadowy without some supernatural in- 
fluence ? Be assured that the only influence exists in 
the sublime and intricate workings of that mind which 
in its pure state was itself an emanation from the Deity ; 
which is only shadowed by illusion while in its earthly 
union with the brain, and which, on the dissolution of 
that brain, will again live uncombined, a changeless and 
eternal spirit. 

It is as easy to believe the power of mind in conjuring 
up a spectre as in entertaining a simple thought : it is 
not strange that this thought may appear embodied, 
especially if the external senses be shut : if we think 
of a distant friend, do we not see a form in our mind's 
eye, and if this idea be intensely defined, does it not 
become a phantom ? 



56 PHANTASY FROM MENTAL ASSOCIATION. 

" Phantasma est sentiendi actus, neque difFert a sen- 
sione aliter quam fieri differt a factum esse.'^ 

" A phantom is an act of thinking/^ &c. 

You have dipped deeply into Hobbes, Astrophel, and 
will correct me if I misquote this philosopher of Malms- 
bury. 

It was in Paris, at the soiree of Mons. Bellarl;, and a 
few days after the death of Marshal Ney, the servant, 
ushering in the Mareschal Aine, announced Mons. Le 
Mareschal Ney, We were startled ; and may I confess 
to you, that the eidolon of the Prince of Moskwa was 
for a moment as perfect to my sight as reahty ? 

Now it is as easy to imagine a fairy infinitely small as 
a giant infinitely large. Between an idea and a phan- 
tom, then, there is only a difference in degree ; their 
essence is the same as between the simple and transient 
thought of a child, and the intense and beautiful ideas 
of a Shakspere, a Milton, or a Dante. 

" Consider your own conceptions,'^ said Imlac, " you 
will find substance without extension. An ideal form 
is no less real than material, but yet it has no exten- 
sion.'^ 

You hear I adopt the word idea, as referring to the 
organ of vision, but sight is not the only sense subject 
to illusion. Hearing, taste, smell, touch, may be thus 
perverted, because the original impression was on the 
focus of all the senses, the brain. 

Indeed, two of these illusions are often synchronous : 
as when a deep sepulchral voice is uttered by a thin 
filmy spectre, like the ghosts of Ossian, through which 
the moonbeams and the stars were seen to glimmer. 
But the illusion of the eye is by far the most common, 
and hence our adopted terms refer chiefly to the sight: 
as spectre, phantom, phantasm, apparition, eidolon, 
ghost, shadow, shade. 

The ghost then is nothing more than an intense idea. 



PHANTASY FROM MENTAL ASSOCIATION. 57 

And as I have caught the mood of story-tellings listen 
to some analogies of those deep impressions on the 
mind which are the spring of all this phantasy. 

That destructive brainworm^ Demonomania^ is often 
excited in ihe mind of a proselyte by designing religious 
fanatics. Let the life of the selected person be ever 
so virtjious and exemplary, she (for it is usually on the 
softer sex that these impostures are practised) becomes 
convinced of the influence of the demon over her, and 
she is thus criminally taught the necessity of conversion 
— is won over to the erroneous doctrine of capricious 
and unqualified election. 

These miseries do not always spring from self-inte- 
rested impostors. The parent and the nurse, in addi- 
tion to the nursery tales of fairies and of genii, too often 
inspire the minds of children with these diabolical phan- 
toms. The effect is always detrimental, — too often per- 
manently destructive. I will quote one case from the 
fourth volume of the Psychological Magazine, related by 
a student of the university of Jena. — " A young girl, 
about nine or ten years old, had spent her birth-day 
with several companions of her own age, in all the 
gaiety of youthful amusement. Her parents were of a 
rigorous devout sect, and had filled the child's head 
with a number of strange and horrid notions about the 
devil, hell, and eternal damnation. In the evening, as 
she was retiring to rest, the devil appeared to her, and 
threatened to devour her. She gave a loud shriek, fled 
to the apartment where her parents were, and fell down 
apparently dead at their feet. A physician was called 
in, and she began to recover herself in a few hours. 
She then related what had happened, adding, that she 
was sure she was to be damned. This accident was 
immediately followed by a severe and tedious nervous 
complaint.'^ 

The ghost will not appear to tell us what will happen. 



58 PHANTASY FROM MENTAL ASSOCIATION. 

but it may rise^ and with awful solemnity too^ to tell us 
that which has happened. Such is the phantom of 
remorse^ — the shadow of conscience, — ^which is indeed 
a natural penalty : a crime that carries with it its own 
consecutive punishment. Were the lattice of Momus 
fixed in the bosom, that window through which the 
springs of passion could be seen, there would be, I fear, 
a dark spot on almost every heart, — as there is, to 
quote the Italian proverb, ^^ a skeleton in every house. ^^ 
Of these pangs of memory, the pages both of history 
and fiction are teeming. Not in the visions of sleep 
alone, but in the glare of noonday, the apparition of a 
victim comes upon the guilty mind, — 

"As when a gryphon through the wilderness, 
With winged course, o'er hill and moory dale. 
Pursues the Arimaspian, who, by stealth. 
Had from his wakeful custody purloined 
The guarded gold." 

Brutus, and Richard Plantagenet, and Clarence, and 
Macbeth, and Manfred, and Lorenzo, and Wallace, and 
Marmion, are but the archetypes of a very numerous 
family in real life, — for Shakspere,- and Byron, and 
Schiller, and Scott, have painted in high relief these 
portraits /rom the life. 

Many a real Manfred has trembled as he called up 
the phantom of Astarte; many a modern Brutus has 
gazed at midnight on the evil spirit of his Caesar ; many 
a modern Macbeth points to the vacant chair of his 
Banquo, the ghost in his seat, and he mentally ex- 
claims, — ^^ Hence, horrible shadow ! unreal mockery, 
hence !'^ 

Ida. Aye, and many a false heart, like Marmion, 
hears, as his hfe ebbs on the battle-field, the phantom 
voice of Constance Beverly : 

" The monk, with unavailing cares, 
Exhausted all the church's prayers. 



PHANTASY FROM MENTAL ASSOCIATION. 59 

Ever he said, that, close and near, 
A lady's voice was in his ear, 
And that the priest he could not hear, 
For that she ever sung : 
' In the lost battle, borne down by the flying, 
Where mingles war's rattle with groans of the dying' — 
So the notes rung." 

We read in Moreton an exquisite story of the trial of a 
murderer^ who had with firmness pleaded — ^^not guilty/^ 
On a sudden, casting his eyes on the witness-box, he 
exclaimed, " This is not fair ; no one is allowed to be 
witness in his own case/^ The box was empty, as you 
may suppose ; but the eye of his conscience saw his 
bleeding victim glaring on him, and ready to swear to 
his murder. He felt that his fate was sealed, and 
pleaded guilty to the crime. 

" Deeds are done on earth, 

Which have their punishment ere the earth closes 

Upon the perpetrators. Be it the working 

Of the remorse-stained fancy, or the vision 

Distinct and real of unearthly being : 

All ages witness that, beside the couch 

Of the fell homicide, oft stalks the ghost 

Of him he slew, or shows his shadowy wound." 

It is this utter humiliation of the spirit, and the con- 
viction of our polluted nature, that rankle so intensely 
in the wounded heart ; and thence the repentant sinner 
feels so deeply that awful truth, that there is a Being 
infinitely more pure and godlike than himself. 

Ev. A very fertile source of spectral illusion is the 
devotion to peculiar studies and deep reflection on inte- 
resting subjects. Mons. Esquirol records the halluci- 
nation of a lady, who had been reading a terrific account 
of the execution of a criminal. Ever after, in all her 
waking hours, and in every place, she saw above her 
left eye the phantom of a bloody head, wrapped in black 
crape, — a thing so horrible to her, that she repeatedly 



60 PHANTASY FROM MENTAL ASSOCIATION. 

attempted the commission of suicide. And of another 
lady^ who had dipped so deeply into a history of 
witches^ that she became convinced of her having, Uke 
Tam O'Shanter's lady of the " cutty sark/' been initiated 
into their mysteries, and officiated at their " sabbath ^^ 
ceremonies. 

Monsieur Andral, in his youth, saw in La Pitie the 
putrid body of a child covered with larvce, and during 
the next morning, the spectre of this corpse lying on 
his table was as perfect as reality. 

We have known mathematicians whose ghosts even 
appeared in the shape of coloured circles and squares, 
and Justus Martyr was haunted by the phantoms of 
flowers. Nay, our own Sir Joshua, after he had been 
painting portraits, sometimes believed the trees, and 
flowers, and posts to be men and women. 

I knew myself a bombardier, whose brain had been 
wounded in a battle. To this man a post was an enemy, 
and he would, when a sudden frenzy came on him, 
attack it in the street with his cane, and not leave it 
until he believed that his foeman was beaten or lay 
prostrate at his feet. 

Intense feeHng, especially if combined with apprehen- 
sion, often raises a phantom. The unhappy Sir R 

C , on being summoned to attend the Princess Char- 
lotte of Wales, saw her form robed in white distinctly 
glide along before him as he sat in his carriage : a parallel, 
nay, an explanation, to the interesting stories of Astrophel. 

Then the sting of conscience may warp a common 
object thus. Theodric, the Gothic king, unjustly con- 
demned and put to death Boethius and Symmachus. It 
chanced at that time, that a large fish was served to him 
at dinner, when his imagination directly changed the 
fishes head into the ghastly face of Symmachus, up- 
braiding him with the murder of innocence ; and such 
was the effect of the phantom, that in a few days he 



PHANTASY FROM MENTAL ASSOCIATION. 61 

died. But these spectral forms were seen^ like the 
dagger of Macbeth, and the hand-writing on the wall, 
by none but the conscience- stricken, a proof of their 
being ideal and not real. 

Not long after the death of Byron, Sir Walter Scott 
was engaged in his study during the darkening twilight 
of an autumnal evening, in reading a sketch of his form 
and habits, his manners and opinions. On a sudden 
he saw as he laid down his book, and passed into his 
hall, the eidolon of his departed friend before him. He 
remained for some time impressed by the intensity of 
the illusion, which had thus created a phantom out of 
skins, and scarfs, and plaids, hanging on a screen in the 
gothic hall of Abbotsford. 

I learn from Doctor T. that a certain lady was on the 
eve of her marriage, but her lover was killed as he was 
on his way to join her. An acute fever immediately 
followed this impression ; and on each subsequent day, 
when the same hour struck on the clock, she fell into a 
state of ecstacy, and believed that the phantom of her lover 
wafted her to the skies ; then followed a swoon of two or 
three hours' duration, and her diurnal recovery ensued. 

Cast. I know notif it will make me happier, Evelyn, 
but I have learned from your lips to believe that many 
of those legends which I held as poetic fictions, may be 
the stories of minds, in which, under the influence of 
devoted affection, the shghtest semblance to an object 
so beloved may work up the phantom of far distant or 
departed forms. You may have read the romantic 
devotion of Henry Howard to the fair Geraldine, the 
flower of England^s court, and the chivalrous challenge 
of her beauty to the knights of France. During his 
travels on the continent, he fell in with the alchymist 
Cornelius Agrippa, who by his sleight cunning showed 
in a magic mirror (as he said) to the doting mind of the 
earl, his absent beauty reclining on a couch, and reading 
by the light of a waxen taper the homage of his pen to 



62 PHANTASY FROM MENTAL ASSOCIATION. 

her exquisite beauty. Then there was an archbishop of 
the Euchaites, a professor of magic in the ninth century. 
The Emperor Basil besought this pseudo-magus Santa- 
baran, for a sight of his long lost and beloved son. He 
appeared before the emperor in a costume of splendour 
and mounted on a charger^ and sinking into his arms^ 
instantly vanished. This phantasy^ and the glamourie 
of the witch of Falsehope over Michael Scott^ and the 
vision of the wondrous tale of Vatheck^ and the legend of 
the Duke of Anjou in Froissart^ might be the rude 
shadows of some slight phantasmagoria working on a 
sensitive or impassioned mind ; may they not ? 

Ev. I am proud of my proselyte, lady. 

Ida. I presume these illusions may be wrought with- 
out the outlines of distinct shapes. I have ever thought 
the vision of Eliphaz the Temanite more solemn, be- 
cause an undefined shadow : " A vision is before our face, 
but we cannot discern the form thereof.^^ And where 
the profane poets have written thus mystically, they have 
risen in sublimity. Such is Milton^s portraiture of 
death : 

" the other shape. 

If shape it could be called, which shape had none 
Distinguishable in member, joint, or limb ; 
Or substance might be called that shadow seemed. 
For each seemed neither." 

And in the splendid vision of Manfred, whose thoughts 
were, alas ! so polluted by passion — 

" I see 
The steady aspect of a clear large star, 
But nothing more. 

Spirit. We have no form beyond the elements. 
Of which we are the mind and principle." 

And the idolaters profanely adopted this mystic meta- 
phor when they inscribed their Temple of I sis, at Sais — 

" I am whatever has been, is, and shall be, and no one hath taken off 
my veil." 



PHANTASY FROM MENTAL ASSOCIATION. 63 

Ev. The phantom is often described as destitute of 
form. When Johnson was asked to define the ghost 
which appeared to old Cave, he answered : '' Why^ sir^ 
something of a shadowy being.^' And there is a subli- 
mity and a mystery in that which is indefinite. Two 
very deep philosophers have however differed in opinion 
regarding the effect of darkness and obscurity on the 
mind. Burke alludes to darkness as a cause of the sub- 
lime and terrific: (and he is supported by Tacitus — 
" Omne ignotum pro magnifico est :^^) Locke^ as not 
naturally a cause of terror^ but as it is associated by 
nurses and old crones with ghosts and goblins. 

I will not split this difference, but I believe Burke is 
in the right. Obscurity is doubtless deeply influential 
in raising phantoms; that which is indefinable becomes 
almost of necessity a ghost. If the ghosts of Shak- 
spere did not appear, the illusion would be more im- 
pressive. In darkness and night, therefore, the ghosts 
burst their cerements, the spirits walk abroad, and the 
ghost seers revel in all their superstitious glory. The 
druids, those arch impostors, acted their mysteries in the 
depth of shadowy groves : and the heathen idols are 
half hidden both in the hut of the American Indian and 
the temples of Indostan. It is true children shut their 
eyes when frightened, but this is instinctive^ and because 
they think it real; but, in truth, they ever dread the 
notion of darkness. By the fancy of a timid mind, in 
the deepening gloom of twilight, a withered oak has 
been fashioned into a living monster; and I might 
occupy our evening in recounting the tales of terror to 
which a decayed trunk once gave birth, among some 
village gossips in the weald of Sussex. 

There are few who '^ revisit the glimpses of the moon,'^ 
whose romantic humour leads them abroad about night- 
fall, who have not sometimes been influenced by feeling 
somewhat like phantasy, during the indistinct vision of 
6 



G4 PHANTASY FROM MENTAL ASSOCIATION. 

twilight ; the dim emanations of the crescent^ or the 
more deceptive illusion of an artificial luminous point 
irradiating a circumambient vapour. Through the mag- 
nifying power of this floating medium^ the image may 
be fashioned into all the fancied forms of poetical crea- 
tion. 

At the midnight hour^ by a blue taper light, and in a 
ruined castle, a simple tale will become a romance of 
terror. 

I have spoken thus, to introduce an incident which 
occurred years ago, and yet my mind's eye shows it to 
me as if it were of yesterday. 

It was in the year ^ on the eve of my presenting 

myself at the college for my diploma. I had been deeply 
engaged during the day, in tracing, with some fellow 
students, the distribution of the nervous ganglia. The 
shades of evening had closed over us as our studies 
were nearly completed, and one by one my companions 
gave me good night, until, about ten o'clock, I was left 
alone, still poring over the subject of my study, by the 
dim light of a solitary taper. On a sudden I was star- 
tled by the loud pealing of a clock, which, striking 
twelve, warned me most unexpectedly of the solemn 
hour of midnight ; for I was not otherwise conscious of 
this lapse of time. For a moment I seemed in utter 
darkness, until straining my eyes, a blue and lurid 
glimmer floated around me. A chilliness crept over 
me, and I had a strange indefinable consciousness of 
utter desolation — of being immured in some Tartarean 
cavern, or pent among icy rocks, for the cold night- wind 
was sweeping in hollow murmurs through the vaults. 
In the blue half-twilight I was at length sensible that I 
was not alone, but in the presence of indistinct shadowy 
forms, silent and motionless as the grave ; and by that 
awful sensation of the sublime which springs from ob- 
scurity, I conceived that I had suffered transmigration. 



PHANTASY FROM MENTAL ASSOCIATION. 65 

or had glided unconsciously through the gates of Hades^ 
and that these were the embodied spirits — the manes of 
the departed^ in sleep ; and then I thought the sounds 
were not those of the wind, but the hollow moaning of 
those restless spirits that could not sleep. By some 
species of glamourie which I could not comprehend^ 
the gloom appeared to brighten by slow degrees, and 
the forms became more distinct. When we are involved 
in mystery, the sense of touch is instinctively brought 
to its analysis. T put forth my hand, and found that my 
eyes were not mocked with a mere vision ; for it came 
in contact with something icy cold and death-like — it 
was an arm clammy and cadaverous that fell across my 
own ; and as the smell of death came over me, a corpse 
rolled into my lap. 

The moaning of the breeze increased, and the screech- 
owl shrieked as she flitted unseen around me. At this 
moment a scream of agony was heard in the distance, 
as of some mortal frame writhing in indescribable an- 
guish, while a hoarse and wizard voice cried, ^^ Endure ! 
endure !" It ceased ; and then I heard a pattering and 
flutter, and then a shrill squeaking, as of some tiny 
creatures that were playing their gambols in the dark- 
ness which again came around me. On a sudden all 
was hushed, and there was a glimmer of cold twilight, 
as when a horn of the moon, as Astrophel would say, 
comes out from an eclipse ; and then a brighter gleam 
of bluer light burst through the gloom, at which I con- 
fess I started, and my hand dropped into a pool of 
blood. Like the astonished Tam O^Shanter, it seemed 
that I was alone in the chamber of death, or the solitary 
spectator of some demon incantation or of some whole- 
sale murder. There were some forms blue and livid, 
some cadaverous, of " span-long, wee, unchristened 
bairns," and others deluged in blood and impurity lay 
around me : one pale and attenuated form, that more 

F 



66 PHANTASY FROM MENTAL ASSOCIATION. 

than mocked the deHcate beauty of the Medicean Venus^ 
lay naked on the ground. On the athletic form of 
another the moonbeam fell in a glory, as if the fabled 
legend of Endymion was reahzed before my eyes. 

AsTR. And 

Ev. Ay, now for the secret — the materiel of this 
wild vision. The truth was, I had dropped asleep in 
the dissecting-room — the candle had burned out ; and 
thus, with a copious supply of dead bodies, the howling 
of a tempest, the purple storm-clouds, the blue gleams 
of moonshine, and bats, and screech-owls, and the 
screams of patients in the surgical wards, and withal 
the hoarse voices of those croaking comforters, the 
night-nurses, — I have placed before you a harmony of 
horrors, that might not shame a legend of Lewis, or a 
Radcliffian romance. 

Simple as this will be the explanation of many and 
many a tale of mystery, although fraught with accumu- 
lated horrors, like those of the " Castle of Udolpho f' 
and if, putting aside that ultraromantic appetite for 
the marvellous, we have courage to attempt their ana- 
lysis, the pages of demonology Avill be shorn of half 
their terrors, the gulph of superstition will be illumined 
by the light of philosophy, and creation stand forth in 
all its harmonious and beautiful nature. 



PHANTASY FROM CEREBRAL EXCITEMENT. 



" A false creation, 

Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain." 

Macbeth. 

AsTR. I will grant the influence of all these inspiring 
causes^ Evelyn^ but it is not under adventitious circum- 
stances alone that the gifted seer is presented with his 
visions, but also in the clear dayhght, in the desart, or 
in a mountain hut ; surrounded, too, by those who are 
content with the common faculties of man. 

Among many of the Gothic nations especially, women 
were the pecuhar professors of divination and magic. 
The Volva-Seidkona, the Fiolkyngi, the Visindakona, 
and the Nornir, were the oracular priestesses, the chief 
of whom was the Hexa. These had the faculty of insight 
into skulda, or the future, and foreknew the doom of 
mortals : either to the niflheiner, or hell, over which 
presided the half blue and half flesh-tinted Hela, the 
goddess of death, who, as the Cimbric peasants believed, 
diffused pestilence and plague as she rode over the 
earth on her three-footed horse Hellhest; or to the 
Valhalla, or paradise of Odin. And this we read in the 
*^Edda.'^ 

Ev. Gramercy, Astrophel, you run up the catalogue 
of these weird women as you were involved in their un- 

\2 



68 PHANTASY FROM CEREBRAL EXCITEMENT. 

holy league. Have a care^ or we must have you caged. 
There was once a Dr. Fordage^ a divine of Berkshire, 
(as it is recorded in a strange book, '^ Demonium Meri- 
dianum, or Satan at Noon-day/') accused of seeing 
spectres, such as " dragons with tails eight yards long, 
with four formidable tusks, and spouting fire from their 
nostrils." Remember the peril, and beware. 

AsTR. Oh, sir, you must impeach by wholesale, for 
clairvoyance or second sight prevails in some regions as 
a national faculty. 

The courses of my travel have shown to me this in- 
spiration, especially among the elevated parts of the 
globe. The Hartz and other forests in Germany, the 
Alps and Pyrenees, the Highlands of Scotland, the 
hills of Ireland, the mountains of the Isle of Man, and 
the frozen fields of Iceland and Norway, abound in 
ghostly legends. Among the passes of the Spanish 
Sierras, also, it is believed that the Saludadores and the 
Covenanters saw angels on the hill-side during their 
wanderings and persecutions. 

Ev. And how clear is the natural reason of this. As 
in the wide desert, so on the mountain, nature assumes 
her wildest form. Of the awful sublimity of clouds, and 
vapours, and lightnings, among the gorges of the giant 
rocks, of the Alps, and the Appenines, and the deep 
and dreadful howling of a storm in the icy bosom of 
a glacier, or bellowing among the crumbling walls of 
ruined castles, the lowlander can form no idea. 

The mind both of the Bedouin Arab, and especially 
of the mountaineer, is thus cradled in romance. If 
that mind be rude and uncultivated, credulity and 
superstition are its inmates ; ignorance being the com- 
mon stamp of the seers, except in rare instances of deep 
reflectors or melancholy bookworms, whose abstractions, 
like those of Allan Bane andBrian andMac Aulay, assume 
the prophetic faculty ; the seer by its power perceiving. 



PHANTASY FROM CEREBRAL EXCITEMENT. 69 

as he declares^ things distant or future as if they were 
before his eye. 

The superstitious legends of Martin^ the historian of 
the Western Isles^ and the precepts for the practice 
and governance of this clairvoyance^ prove a deep in- 
terest and impression^ but not a mystery. Among the 
defiles of Snaefel^ in Man, the belief is prevalent : ^^ A 
Manksman amid his lonely mountains reclines by some 
romantic stream, the murmurings of which lull him into 
a pleasing torpor ; half-slumbering, he sees a variety of 
imaginary beings, which he believes to be real. Some- 
times they resemble his traditionary idea of faries, and 
sometimes they assume the appearance of his friends 
and neighbours. Presuming on these dreams, the 
Manks enthusiast predicts some future event.^^ Here 
is a local reason, as among the icy mountains of the 
north. Cheffer writes, that thus influenced, the melan- 
choly of the Laplanders renders them ghost-seers, and 
the dream and the vision are ever believed by them to 
be prophetic. 

Cast. It is the contemplation of these alpine glories, 
that gilds with so bright a splendour of imagery the 
romances of mountain poets, — the wild legends of Os- 
sian, and those which spangle, as with sparkling jewels, 
the pages of the " Lay," the ^' Lady of the Lake,^' and 
" Marmion." It may excite the jealousy of a classic, 
but the ghosts and heroes of Ossian, as very acute 
critics decide, are cast in a finer mould than the gods of 
Homer. 

You smile at me, most learned clerks of Oxenford, 
yet I believe the critics are correct. When I was prowl- 
ing in the king's private library, in Paris, M. Barbier 
placed in my hands two of the most precious tomes, 
the folio " Evangelistarium," or prayer-book of Charle- 
magne, and the 4to. edition of Ossian. The one is 
sanctified by its subject, and rich beyond compare in 



70 PHANTASY FROM CEREBRAL EXCITEMENT. 

illuminations of gold and colours, and priceless in the 
eyes of the bibUomaniac. The other was the favourite 
book of Napoleon. 

Fancy that you hear him in the solitude of St. Cloud, 
poring in deep admiration over passages like this : 

" Fingal drew his sword, the blade of dark-brown 
Luno. The gleaming path of the steel winds through 
the gloomy ghost. The form fell shapeless into air, like 
a column of smoke as it rises from the half-extinguished 
furnace. The spirit of Loda shrieked, as, rolled into him- 
self, he rose on the wind. Inistore shook at the sound. 
The waves heard it on the deep, and stopped in their 
course with fear.^^ 

And yet these beauties, like the pictures of Turner, 
are looked upon with a smile of wondering pity or of 
scorn, simply because these home-keeping critics have 
never scaled the mountain, or breasted the storm for its 
wild and purple glory. 

Among the mountains of Wales it was my fortune to 
light on many a wild spot, where the poetry of nature 
fell like the sun-light on the heart of the peasant. In 
the beautiful vale of Neath there is the tiny hamlet of 
Pont-Neath-Vechan. I shall ever remember how fair 
and beautiful it seemed as I descended from the moun- 
tain rocks of Pen y Craig, the loftiest of the Alps of 
Glamorgan, which inclose Ystrad-Vodwg, the ^^ village of 
the green valley .^^ Around its humble cottages is spread 
the most romantic scenery of Brecknockshire. The 
tributaries of its rolhng river there blend their waters — 
those torrent streams which Drayton has impersonated 
in the Polyolbion, as 

" Her handmaids Melte sweet, clear Hepste, and Tragath." 

On the Melte is the wonderous cavern of Porth- 
Mawr, through which, in Stygian darkness, flows this 
Acherontic river. And on the clear Hepste is that glit- 



PHANTASY FROM CEREBRAL. EXCITEMENT. 71 

tering waterfall which in the midst of leafy woods and 
bosky glens^ throws itself, like a miniature Niagara, 
from the rock, forming an arch of crystal, beneath 
which the traveller and the peasant cross the river's 
bed on the moss-green and slippery limestone. Oh ! 
for the pencil of a Salvator, the pen of Torquato, to 
picture the wild vision which was before my eyes when 
I sought shelter beneath this crystal canopy from the 
deluge of a thunder-cloud. The lightning flash gleamed 
through the waterfall, forming a prismatic rainbow of 
transcendent beauty, while the deep peal swept through 
the echoing dingles, and the crimson-spotted trout 
leaped in sportive summersaults over the water-ousel 
that was walking quietly on the gravel, deep in the 
water. 

In this wilderness of nature, no wonder that legends 
should prevail: that fairies are seen sporting in the 
Hepste cascades, and that in the dark cavern of Cwm- 
Rhyd y Rhesg, the ghosts of headless ladies so often 
affright the romantic girls of these wild valleys. No 
wonder that they believe the giant Idris, enthroned on 
his mountain chair, shook the three pebbles from his 
shoe into that pool which bears the name of the Lake 
of Three Grains ; or that the shrieks of Prince Idwal 
are to this day heard by the peasants of Snowdonia, 
amid the storm which bursts over the purple crag of the 
Twll-dhu, and thunder-clouds cast a deeper and a 
darker shade over the black water of Lyn Idwal. Nay, 
I myself may confess, that as I have stood on the peaks 
ofYWyddfa, while the white and crimson clouds rolled 
beneath me in fleecy masses, whirling around the cone 
of Snowdon, I have for a moment believed that I was 
something more than earthly. And when enveloped in 
the mysterious cloud which rests on the head of Mount 
Pilate in Lucern, I gave half my faith to the legend of 
the guide, that storm and human trouble, and the perils 

6 



72 PHANTASY FROM CEREBRAL EXCITEMENT. 

of flocks in the vicinity of its triple peak^ were the re- 
sult of the self-immersion of Pontius Pilate in its lake, 
an act of remorse at his impious adjudication. This 
unhallowed water was regarded with dismay, and not a 
pebble might be cast to make a ripple on its surface 
and disturb the quiet of the traitor. But, lo ! in the 
sixteenth century the spell was proved to be a fable by 
an assemblage of bold Switzers, who hurled rocks into 
the lake, and swam across its water without the slightest 
indication of displeasure from this kelpie of the Brun- 
deln Alp. 

Ev. The truth is sweeter on your lips than fiction, 
Castaly. Whisper again in the ear of Astrophel the 
penalties entailed on the indulgence of second sight. 
Dr. Abercrombie knew a gentleman who could, by his 
will, call up spirits, and seers have assured me that the 
sight is to a certain degree voluntary : — by fixing the 
attention on a subject during the dark hour, the power 
of divination may be increased, but it cannot be con- 
trolled. But those who indulge in those illusions are 
often driven on to a degree of frenzy equal to the 
agonizing penalty of Frankenstein ; even as the witch of 
Endor trembled when she raised before Saul the spirit 
of Samuel, or the Iberian princess Pyrene, who, like Sin, 
fled from the child-serpent which was born from her 
dalliance with Hercules. 

The effort of the seers, nay, the mysterious ordeal to 
which they submit themselves, are often so painful, that 
they gaze with strained eyeballs, and fainting occurs as 
the vision appears. When the dark hour is o'er, they 
will exclaim with Mac Aulay, " Thank God, the mist hath 
passed from my spirit !'' Indeed, Sir Walter Scott ob- 
served in those who presumed to this faculty, '^ shades 
of mental aberration which caused him to feel alarmed 
for those who assumed the sight." Archibald, Duke of 
Argyle, was a seer, and it is written that he was haunted 



PHANTASY FROM CEREBRAL EXCITEMENT. 73 

by blue phantoms^ the origin_, I believe^ of our epithet 
for melancholy — " blue devils/' 

At the foot of yonder purple mountains in Morgany^ 
once hved Colonel Bowen, a doer of evil works, whose 
spectral visitations fill so many pages of Baxter^s " Essay 
on the Reality of Apparitions." This deep historian of 
the realm of shadows tells that the wizard was worn 
down by the phantoms of his evil conscience ; that he 
imprisoned himself and his boy, who was, I presume, a 
sort of famulus^ in a small castle ; that he walked and 
talked of diablerie, and I know not what miseries, in his 
sleep. 

I have myself known those who see spectres when 
they shut their eyes, before an attack of delirium, which 
vanish on the re-admission of light ; and in imaginative 
minds, under peculiar conditions, intense reading may 
so shut out the real world, that an effort is required to 
re-establish vision. In Polydori's "Vampyre'' it is re- 
corded that they had been reading phantasmagoria, and 
ghost stories in Germany, thereby highly exciting the 
sensitive mind of Percy Bysshe Shelley. Anon, on 
Byron's reading some lines of Christabel, Shelley ran 
from the room, and was found leaning on a mantel-piece 
bedewed with cold and clammy perspiration ; and it is 
enough to read of the gloom which marked the minds 
of those geister-sehers, the proselytes of Swedenborg 
(among whom he ranked the King of Prussia), to reclaim 
all the converts to his strange religion. 

AsTR. There is a bright side, Evelyn. In Germany, 
those children which are born on a Sunday are termed 
^^ Sontag's kind," and are believed to be endowed with the 
faculty of seeing spirits ; these are gifted with a life of 



Ev. And you believe it. Well, for a moment I grant 
its truth ; but it is the reverse in Scotland ; the vision is 
almost ever cheerless, and prophetic of woe. " Does 



74 PHANTASY FROM CEREBRAL EXCITEMENT. 

the sight come gloomy o'er your spirit ?" asks Mac Aulay. 
^^ As dark as the shadow of the moon when she is dark- 
ened in her course in heaven^ and prophets foretell of 
future times/' And the anathema of Roderich Dhu's 
prophet Brian is dark and gloomy as the legend of his 
mysterious birth^ or its prototype, the impure fable of 
Atys, and the loves of Jupiter and Sangaris. 

Cast. If I am the sylph to charm this moody gen- 
tleman from his reveries, I will warn him in the words 
of a canzonet, even of the 17th century : 

" Yet, rash astrologer, refrain ; 
Too dearly would be won 
The prescience of another's pain, 
If purchased by thine own." 

And I will tell him what Collins writes on the perils of 
the seer, in his '^ Ode on Highland Superstition/' — 

'^ How they whose sight such dreary dreams engross, 
With their o\mi %-ision oft astonished droop. 
When o'er the wat'ry strath or quaggy moss 

They see the gliding ghosts embodied troop. — 
They know what spu'it brews the stormful day, 
And, heartless, oft hke moody madness stare 
To see the phantom train their secret work prepare." 

He listens not to me. Nay, then, I will try the virtue 
of a spell that has oft shed a ray of light over the dark 
hour of the ghost-seer. I will whisper music in thine 
ear, Astrophel. The fiend of Saul was chased away by 
the harp of David ; the gloomy shadows of Allan Mac 
Aulay were brightened by the melody of Annot Lyle ; 
and the illusion of Phihp of Spain, that he was dead 
and in his grave, was dispelled by the exquisite lute of 
the Rose of the Alhambra. 

AsTR. My thanks, fair Castaly ; yet wherefore should 
I claim your syren spells. My visions are dehghtful as 
the inspiration of the improvisatore, and carry not the 



PHANTASY FROM CEREBRAL, EXCITEMENT. 75 

penalty of the monomaniac. But say, if there be (in 
vulgar words) a crack in this cranium of mine, may not 
this crack, as saith the learned Samuel Parr, " let in the 
light r' 

If prophetic visions in the early ages came over the 
dying, why not in ours ? 

The last solemn speech of Jacob was an inspired pro- 
phecy of the miraculous advent : — '^ The sceptre shall 
not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between 
his feet, until Shiloh come, and to him shall the gather- 
ing of the people be." And is it profanation to ask, 
why may not the departing spirit of hohness, even now, 
prophecy to us ? 

As we see the stars from the deep well, so may such 
spirits look into futurity from the dark abyss of dissolu- 
tion. In some cases of little children, I have learned 
that this unearthly feehng has caused them to anticipate 
their dying. How pathetically does John Evelyn, in 
his Diary, allude to the anticipation of his little boy, — 
'^ an angel in body and in mind, who died of a quartan 
ague, in his fifth year. The day before he died, he 
called to me and told me that, for all I loved him so 
dearly, I should give my house, lands, and all my fine 
things, to his brother." 

The dying seem indeed themselves to feel that they 
are scarcely of this world. Holcroft, a short time before 
his death, hearing his children on the stairs, said to his 
wdfe, ^'^ Are those your children, Louisa ?" — as if he were 
already in another existence. As if the human mind 
itself were perusing the celestial volume of the recording 
angel, — the a^^ul book of fate. 

When the Northern Indian is stretched on the tor- 
ture, even amidst his agonies, an inspired combination 
of belief and hope presents him with vivid pictures of 
the blessed regions of the Kitchi Manitou. The faith- 



16 PHANTASY FROM CEREBRAL EXCITEMENT. 

ful Mussulman^ in the agonies of deaths feels assured 
that his enchanted sight is blessed by the beautifid 
houris in Mahomet^s paradise. The Runic warriors 
also^ as the Icelandic chronicles record in their epi- 
taphs, when mortally wounded in battle, " fall, laugh, 
and expire -'^ and in this expiration, hke the dying 
warriors of Homer, predict the fate of their enemies. 

As the venom of the serpent curdled the blood in the 
veins of Regner Lodbrog, the Danish king, he exclaimed 
with ecstasy, — ^' What new joys arise within me ! I am 
dying ! I hear Odin^s voice ; the gates of his palace are 
already opened, and half-naked maidens advance to 
meet me. A blue scarf heightens the dazzling white- 
ness of their bosoms ; they approach and present me 
with the soul-exhilarating beverage in the bloody skulls 
of my enemies.^^ 

Ev. In that awful moment, when the spirit is 

" Soon from his cell of clay 

To burst a seraph m the blaze of day," 

the mind is prone to yield to those feelings which it 
might perhaps in the turmoil of the busy world and at 
another period deem superstition. There is something 
in the approach of death of so holy and so solemn a 
nature, something so unhke life in the feeling of the 
dying, that in this transition, although we cannot com- 
pass the mystery, some vision of another world may 
steal over the retiring spirit, imparting to it a proof of 
its immortality. I do not fear to yield for once my 
approval of this devout passage of Sir Thomas Brown : 
— ^' It is observed that men sometimes upon the hour 
of their departure do speak and reason above them- 
selves, for then the soul begins to be freed from 
the ligaments of the body, and to discourse in a 
strain above mortahty.^^ It is on the verge of eternity. 



PHANTASY FROM CEREBRAl. EXCITEMENT. ^7 

and the laws and principles of vitality may be already 
repealed by the Being who conferred them.- — The argu- 
ments^ then^ regarding the phenomena of life may fail, 
when Ufe has all but ceased. 

With this admission, I may counsel Astrophel as to 
the danger of adducing heathen history or fiction in 
proof of this solemn question. 

Cast. And yet Shakspere, for one, with a poet^s K- 
cense, brings before us, as you do, the dying hour, as 
the cause of prophetic vision. John of Gaunt, on his 
death-bed, mutters, — 

" Methinks I am a prophet new inspired, 
And thus expiring do foretell of him," 

and then predicts the fate of Richard. 

And remember, the dying Hotspur says, — 

" now could I prophecy, 

But that the icy hand of death," &c. 

Ev. Well, I will not controvert your creed, Astrophel ; 
rather let me illustrate some of your apparent mysteries 
by simple analogy. 

As in these extreme moments of life, so in the hour 
of extreme danger, when an awful fate is impending, 
and the world and our sacred friendships are about to 
be lost to us, a vision of our absent friends will pass 
before us with all the light of reahty. We read in the 
writings of Dr. ConoUy of a person who, in danger of 
being swamped on the Eddystone rock, saw the phan- 
toms of his family passing distinctly before him ; and 
these are the words of the English Opium-Eater : — '^'^ I 
was once told by a near relative of mine that, having in 
her childhood fallen into a river, and being on the very 
verge of death but for the critical assistance which 
reached her, she saw in a moment her whole Hfe in its 



78 PHANTASY FROM CEREBRAL EXCITEMENT. 

minutest incidents arrayed before her simultaneously^ 
as in a mirror, and she had a faculty developed as sud- 
denly for comprehending the whole and every part/^ 

Now, although the coming on of death is often at- 
tended by that slight delirium indicated by the babbling 
of green fields, and the playing with flowers, and the 
picking of the bedclothes, and the smiling on the 
fingers^ ends, yet in others some oppressive or morbid 
cause of insanity may be removed by the moribund con- 
dition. In the words of Aretaeus, — "the system has 
thrown off many of its impurities, and the soul, left 
naked, was free to exercise such energies as it still pos- 
sessed.^^ 

I will glance in illustration at these interesting cases : — 
from Zimmerman, of an insane woman of Zurich, who, 
" a few hours before her death, became perfectly sensi- 
ble and wonderfully eloquent ;'^ — from Dr. Perceval, of 
a female idiot, who, as she was dying of consumption, 
evinced the highest powers of intellect ; — from Dr. 
Marshall, of the maniac, who became completely ra- 
tional some hours previous to his dissolution ; — and 
from Dr. Hancock, of the Quaker, who, from the condi- 
tion of a drivelling idiot, became shortly before his 
death so completely rational, as to call his family toge- 
ther, and, as his spirit was passing from him, bestow 
on them with pathetic solemnity his last benediction. 

Thus your impressive records are clearly explained 
by pathology ; and, perhaps unconscious of this, Mrs. 
Opie has a fine illustration in her " Father and Daugh- 
ter :'^ — the mind of the maniac parent being illumined 
before his death by a beam of reason. 

But in the languid brain of an idiot excitement may 
even produce rationality. 

Samuel Tuke tells us of a domestic servant, who 
lapsed into a state of complete idiocy. Some time after, 



PHANTASY FROM CEREBRAL, EXCITEMENT. 79 

she fell into typhus fever^ and as this progressed, there 
w^s a real development of mental power. At that stage 
when delirium lighted up the minds of others, she was 
rational, because the excitement merely brought up the 
nervous energy to its proper point. As the fever abated, 
however, she sunk into her idiot apathy, and thus con- 
tinued until she died. It was but the transient gleam 
of reason. 



PHANTASY FROM CEREBRAL CONGES- 
TION.— OPIUM. 



" Have we eaten of the insane root, 

That takes the reason prisoner?" Macbeth. 



Ev. The contrasts to these phantoms of blind supersti- 
tion, are those of the overstrained condition of the mind. 
The Creator has ordained the brain to be the soil in 
which the mind is implanted or developed. This brain, 
like the corn-field, must have its fallow, or it is ex- 
hausted and reduced in the degree of its high qualities. 
In our intellectual government, therefore, we should 
ever adopt that happy medium, equally remote from 
the bigotry of the untutored, and the ultra refinement 
of the too highly cultivated mind. 

It is not essential that I should now offer you more 
than a hint, that the essence of the gloomy ghosts of 
deep study, like the melancholy phantoms and oppres- 
sive demons of the night-mare, consists in the accumu- 
lation of black blood about the brain and the heart; 
and a glance at phrenology would explain to you how 
the influence of that blood on the various divisions ot 
the brain will call up in the mind these '^ Hydras and 
Gorgon s, and Chimeras dire.^^ 



PHANTASY PROM CEREBRAL CONGESTION. 81 

The learned Pascal constantly saw a gulph yawning 
at his side^ but he was aware of his illusion. He was, 
however, always strapped in his chair, lest he should 
fall into this gulph, especially while he was working 
the celebrated problem of the cycloidal curve. 
• A distinguished nobleman, who but lately guided the 
helm of state in England, was often annoyed by the 
spectre of a bloody head ; — a strange coincidence with 
the phantom of the Count Duke d^Olivarez, the minister 
of Philip of Spain. 

From Dr. ConoUy we learn the curious illusion of a 
student of anatomy, who, during his ardent devotion to 
his study, confidently believed that there was a town in 
his deltoid muscle. 

And, from Dr. Abercrombie, the case of a gentleman 
of high literary attainments, who, when closely reading 
in his study, was repeatedly annoyed by the intrusive 
visits of a little old woman in a black bonnet and man- 
tle, with a basket on her arm. So filmy, however, was 
this phantom, that the door-lock was seen through her. 
Supposing she had mistaken her way, he politely 
showed her the door, and she instantly vanished. It 
was the change of posture w^hich effected this disap- 
pearance, by altering the circulation of the brain-blood, 
then in a state of partial stagnation. 

My friend. Dr. Johnson, has told me of a gentleman 
of great science, who conceived that he was honoured 
by the frequent visits of spectres. They were at first 
refined and elegant both in manners and in conversa- 
tion, which, on one occasion, assumed a witty turn, and 
quips, and puns, and satire, were the order of the even- 
ing ; so that he was charmed with his ghostly visitors, 
and sought no relief. On a sudden, however, they 
changed into demoniac fiends, uttering expressions of 
the most degraded and unholy nature. He became 
alarmed, and depletion soon cured him of his phantasy. 



82 PHANTASY FROM CEREBRAL CONGESTION. 

A Scotch lawyer had long laboured under this kind 
of monomania, which at length proved fatal. His phy- 
sician had long seen that some secret grief was gnawing 
the heart and sucking the life-blood of his patient, and 
he at last extorted the confession, that a skeleton was 
ever watching him from the foot of his bed. The phy- 
sician tried various modes to dispel the illusion, and 
once placed himself in the field of the vision, and was 
not a little terrified when the patient exclaimed, that he 
saw the skull peering at him over his left shoulder. 

The '•' Martyr Philosopher,^^ too, in the " Diary of a 
Physician,^^ saw, shortly preceding his death, a figure 
in black deliberately putting away the books in his 
study, throwing his pens and ink into the fire, and 
folding up his telescope, as if they were now useless. 
The truth is he himself had been engaged in that occu- 
pation, but it was his own disordered imagination that 
raised the spectre. 

You will believe from these illustrations, Astrophel, 
that Seneca is right in his aphorism, — 

'' Nullum fit magnum ingenium sine mistura dementise." 

And Pope also in his unconscious imitation, — 

" Great wits to madness nearly are allied." 

Lord Castlereagh, when commanding in early life a 
militia regiment in Ireland, was stationed one night in 
a large desolate country house, and his bed was at one 
end of a long dilapidated room, while, at the other ex- 
tremity, a great fire of wood and turf had been prepared 
within a huge gaping old-fashioned chimney. Waking 
in the middle of the night, he lay watching from his 
pillow the gradual darkening of the embers on the 
hearth, when suddenly they blazed up, and a naked 
child stepped from among them upon the floor. The 
figure advanced slowly towards Lord Castlereagh, rising 



PHANTASY FROM CEREBRAL CONGESTION. 83 

in stature at every step^ until^ on coming within two 
or three paces of his bed^ it had assumed the appear- 
ance of a ghastly giant^ pale as deaths with a bleeding 
wound on the brow^ and eyes glaring with rage and 
despair. Lord Castlereagh leaped from his bed, and 
confronted the figure in an attitude of defiance. It re- 
treated before him, diminishing as it withdrew in the 
same manner that it had previously shot up and ex- 
panded ; he followed it, pace by pace, until the original 
child-like form disappeared among the embers. He 
then went back to his bed, and was disturbed no 
more. 

The melancholy story of the Requiem of Mozart is 
an apt and sublime illustration of this influence. It 
was written by desire of a solemn personage, who 
repeatedly, he affirmed, called on him during its com- 
position, and disappeared on its completion. The re- 
quiem was soon chanted over his own grave ; and the 
man in black was, I believe, but a phantom of his own 
creation. 

A step beyond this, and we have the spectres of the 
delirium of fever : the wanderings of typhus, in which 
the victim either revels with delight in the regions of 
fancy, a midsummer madness, or is influenced by gloom 
and despair, in which, with a consciousness of right and 
wrong, he is driven headlong to acts of ruin and devas- 
tation. 

Ida. In this illusive condition of the intellect consists 
even the monomania of suicide ; and the phrenologist 
will declare that torpor or excitement of the ^^ organ of 
the love of life,^^ will incite or deter from such an act. 
But surely this is error : it is certain that there was a 
fashion among the Stoics for this crime ; and even in the 
early history of Marseilles, suicide was sanctioned, not 
only by custom, but by authority. 

Ev. It is a truth of history, but the essence of the 
G 2 



84 PHANTASY FROM OPIUM. 

crime is the predisposition in the brain. You will think 
to confute my position^ Astrophel, by adducing Brutus 
and Cassius^ and Antony and Cato^ and a host of Ro- 
man heroes^ in proof of the sanity of these suicides ; 
but even in the case of Cato^ if we read Plutarch and 
not Addison^ who with Rousseau, Montaigne, and 
Shaftesbury, leaned toward a sanction, we shall believe 
that Cato was indeed a monomaniac. I speak this in 
charity. 

And to all these morbid states we may still offer 
analogies. Such are the effects of opium. 

The brilliancy of thought may be artificially induced, 
also, by various other narcotics, such as the juice of the 
American manioc, the fumes of tobacco, or the yupa of 
the Othomacoes on the Orinoco. To this end we learn 
from a learned lord, that even ladies of quality are wont 
to '^ light up their minds with opium as they do their 
houses with wax or oil.^^ 

Indeed a kind of inspiration seems for a time to follow 
the use of these narcotics. The Cumean sybil swallowed 
the juice of the cherry laurel ere she sat on the divining 
tripod; and from this may have arisen those super- 
stitious fancies of the ancients regarding the virtues of 
the laurel, and the influence of other trees, of which I 
remember an allusion of the excellent author of the 
"Sylva.^^ 

'^ Here we may not omit what learned men have ob- 
sen^ed concerning the custom of prophets and persons 
inspired of old to sleep upon the boughs and branches of 
trees, on mattrasses and beds made of leaves, ad consu- 
lendum, to ask ad^dce of God. Naturalists tell us that 
the Laurus and Agnus Castus were trees which greatly 
composed the phrensy, and did facilitate true vision, and 
that the first was specifically efficacious, irpog tovq 
EvOvcTiarrjuovg, to insipire a poetical fury : and Cardan, I 
remember, in his book de Fato, insists very much on the 



PHANTASY FROM OPIUM. 85 

dreams of trees for portents and presages, and that the 
use of some of them do dispose men to visions/^ 

During the reverie of the opium eater (not the deep 
sleep of a full dose, but the first and second stage ere 
coma be induced), he is indeed a poet, so far as briUiant 
imagination is concerned, but his scribbUng is mere 
" midsummer madness,^^ the phantoms of which are as 
wild as those of intoxication, dreaming, or insanity. 
But the philosophy, the metaphysics of poetry, are not 
the product of mere excitement : "^ Poeta nascitur, non 
fit/^ A poet's genius is born with him. The influence 
of opium on the philosopher or the orator is the same, 
but in them it does not usually elevate the force of 
imagination beyond that of judgment. The power of 
the faculties has been in fact exhausted by thought or 
study; the stimulus of opium, then, restores that de- 
pressed energy to its proper level, leaving the judgment 
perfect, and not overbalanced. The celebrated Thomas 
Brown, during the composition of his Essay on the 
Mind, kept his intellect on the stretch by opium for 
several successive nights. Sir James Mackintosh (one 
of his favourite pupils) informed us, that on entering 
the doctor's library one morning somewhat abruptly, he 
overheard the following command addressed to his 
daughter ; '^ Effie, bring me the moderate stimulus of a 
hundred drops of laudanum." So that the excitement 
be obtained, it matters not how, whether by the use of 
opium, or other ^^ drowsy sjrrups of the East, poppy or 
mandragora," as in the case of some of our modern 
statesmen; or the free libation of brandy in certain 
orators, who were wont to stagger down to the House 
from White's or Brookes' s, with those clubhouse laurels, 
wet towels, round their brows, and overwhelm Saint 
Stephen's by the thunders of their eloquence. Unless, 
indeed, this be carried to excess, and then we have two 
very interesting states of vision, as you may gather 



86 PHANTASY FROM OPIUM. 

from the following witticism on two of these departed 
legislators, which was founded on a truth : 

" I cannot see the Speaker, Bill, can you ? 
Not see him, Harry, d e, I see two !" 

For the effects of alcohol and opium are alike : the first 
degree is excitement; the second, reverie; the third, sleep, 
or stupor. "Ben Jonson,^^ writes Aubrey, "would 
many times exceede in drink ; Canarie was his beloved 
liquor : then he would tumble home to bed, and when 
he had thoroughly perspired, then to studie.^' 

The second visions of that moral delinquent, the 
practised opium-eater, Hke the cordial julep of Comus, 

" Will bathe the drooping spirits in delight, 
Beyond the bliss of dreams." 

The phantoms of the third stage are often of unutter- 
able anguish : visions of bright forms dabbled in blood, 
and scenes of crime and horror which are at once 
loathed and revelled in. The awful curse of Lord 
Byron^s infidel — a vampyre — who, haunting the grave- 
yard with gouls and afrits, sucks the blood of his race : 

" 'Till they with horror shrink away 
From spectre more accurs'd than they." 

Thus for a moment of delirious joy, he yields up his 
mind to the agonies of remorse, his body to a slow poi- 
son, perhaps to a sinful dissolution. 

Ida. The scenes which I gazed on among the 
opium-houses of Constantinople, ever excited my won- 
der and my pity. These slaves of pleasure, when 
they assemble and take their seats, are the perfect pic- 
tures of either apathetic melancholy or despair. As 
the potent poison creeps through the blood, they are 
lighted with unholy fires, until, these being exhausted. 



PHANTASY FROM OPIUM. 87 

the vulture of Prometheus again gnaws their vitals^ 
although the fire is not stolen from heaven. 

Listen to the confessions of such a slave : — 

^^At last^ with the sense that all was lost^ female 
forms^ and the features that were all the world to me, 
and clasped hands, and heart-breaking partings, and 
then everlasting farewells, and with a sigh such as the 
caves of hell sighed, when the incestuous mother uttered 
the abhorred name of Death, the sound was reverberated 
— Everlasting farewells.^^ 

'^ Whatsoever things capable of being visually repre- 
sented I did but think of in the darkness, immediately 
shaped themselves into phantoms of the eye ; and, by a 
process no less inevitable, when thus once traced in 
faint and visionary colours, they were drawn out by the 
fierce chemistry of my dreams, with insufferable splen- 
dour that fretted my heart.^^ 

Is there any earthly pleasure which will compensate 
the victim of this voluntary condemnation ? 

Ev. And yet a visionary once thought of renting the 
Hummums in Covent Garden, and purchasing a large 
stock of opium, for the purpose of supplying us with 
visions. He would have succeeded, perhaps, if he had 
hired a second Helen to serve up this nepenthe to the 
guests. 

The intense effect of opium is insensibility or death. 
Thus the Natches give narcotics to their victims, and 
the Brahmins to the suttee women, ere they ascend the 
pile, for the purpose of producing insensibility. Its 
mildest effects will be, if long continued, especially in 
early hfe, idiocy ; and Oppenheim states that it is some- 
times administered to adults by design, to substantiate 
a statute of lunacy. 

AsTR. I cannot disprove your facts, Evelyn, nor do 
they yet disprove the rationality of my own faith. 
And is there not one illusion from opium-eating which 



88 PHANTASY FROM OPIUM. 

seems to reverse your laws? From the tales of the 
Opium-Eater we learn, that the healthy thoughts of the 
mind seem to be frozen up in the brain, like the notes 
in the frozen horn of Munchausen, or the Irish echo 
which was so long in giving its answers, that if you had 
a concert, you should play and sing the airs the day be- 
fore the assemblage of your company. And then, 
when the effect was wearing off, these thoughts followed 
so copiously and fast, as that not one in a hundred 
could be recorded. Is this true ? 

Ev. It is a slight fact embellished. The action of 
opium, however, is not uniform : it may produce deep 
sleep, or insensible stupor ; or it may quiet some of the 
faculties ; and when it does so, it excites a dream of 
irregular associations. 

The salts of morphia exert an especial influence over 
the organ of language ; so that the orator in the fluency 
of his power of speech finds it difficult to stop. The 
muriate is the best preparation to induce fluency and 
confidence in speaking, or the mind to luxuriate through- 
out a night in delightful reverie ; and in the morning, 
after this phantasy, the body will even rise refreshed. 

In some cases, however, morphia will create a very 
strange illusion, a spectral language : so that, in reading 
or listening, we may feel or think that the words have 
lost their true meaning. This effect is, I am told, at- 
tended with severe headache. 

The poem of ^^Kubla Khan,^^ which Coleridge has 
termed a psychological curiosity, had its origin in the 
excitement of opium, a spinning out of a theme in 
'^ Purchas^ Pilgrim,^^ which he had been reading : it is 
an effort of the poet in recording the wild images which 
had been before presented to the mind's eye of the 
enthusiast, — the impression, indeed, of the pleasures 
and the pains of memory. 



POETIC PHANTASY, OR FRENZY. 



The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling, 

Doth glance from heaven to earth — from earth to heaven. 

And as imagination bodies forth 

The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen 

Tm*ns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothings 

A local habitation, and a name." 

Midsummer Night's Dkeam. 



AsTR. Is there so potent a charm in poppies, Evelyn ? 
You will make us believe, soon, that opium can make a 
Shakspere, that genius can be imparted by a drug. 

The ghosts of fairy land, those bright emanations of 
a poet^s fancy, which are wafted through the air on the 
thistle-down, or swing to and fro on the filmy thread of 
the gossamer, sprang from a deeper source than this. 
The fairy mythology of Shakspere, the beautiful crea- 
tions of the " Tempest^^ and the " Midsummer Night^s 
Dream,^' are the very offspring of that innate genius, that 
^^ exhausted worlds, and then imagined new'' 

Those exquisite and tricksy spirits, the mischievous 
Puck and the delicate Ariel, indeed, the whole train of 
ghosts which appeared to Macbeth, and Richard, and 
Clarence, and Brutus, and Hamlet, and the spirits of 
the '' Midsummer Night," the '^ Tempest," and '' Mac- 
beth,^' of Bolingbroke and Joan of Arc, could not 
have been so painted, unless they had stood before the 
mind of Shakspere as palpable as reality. 

6 



90 POETIC PHANTASY^ OR FRENZY. 

Look^ too^ on those splendid illustrations of the 
Gothic poets by the eccentric^ or, as Evelyn would call 
him, the half-mad Fuseli. Look on the wild penciUings 
of Blake, another poet painter, and you will be assured 
that they were ghost-seers. An intimate friend of 
Blake, himself a reader of the stars, has told me the 
strangest tales of his visions. In one of his reveries he 
witnessed the whole ceremony of a fairy^s funeral, which 
he peopled with mourners and mutes, and described 
with high poetic beauty. He was engaged, in one of 
these moods, in painting King Edward I., who was 
sitting to him for his pictiu'e. While they were con- 
versing, Wallace suddenly presented himself on the 
field, and by this uncourteous intrusion marred the 
studies of the painter for that day. 

Ev. A most unhappy comparison, Astrophel. The 
difierence between Shakspere and Blake is antipodean, 
Blake was a visionary, and thought his fancies real — 
he was mad. Shakspere was a philosopher, and knew 
all his fancy was but imagination, however real might 
be the facts he wrought from. Ben Jonson told Drum- 
mond that he lay awake one whole night, gazing in 
mute admiration on his great toe ; surrounding which, 
in miniature, appeared the inhabitants of Rome, and 
Carthage, and Tartar}^, and Turkey ; but he also was 
aware of the illusion. 

Cast. My most gracious smile is yours, Evelyn, for 
this honour to my sweet Shakspere. I pray you accord 
the same to the spectral visions of a poet, in whose 
beautiful Aminta each line is a breath of inspiration — 
the day-dreams of the elegant Tasso. Listen. 

" At Bisaccio, Manso had an opportunity to examine 
the singular effects of Tasso^s melancholy ; and often 
disputed with him concerning a familiar spirit which he 
pretended to converse with. Manso endeavoured in 
vain to persuade his friend that the whole was the illu- 



POETIC PHANTASY, OR FRENZY. 91 

sion of a disturbed imagination; but the latter was 
strenuous in maintaining the reahty of what he asserted ; 
and, to convince Manso, desired him to be present at 
one of these mysterious conversations. Manso had the 
complaisance to meet him the next day, and while they 
were engaged in discourse, on a sudden he observed 
that Tasso kept his eyes fixed upon a window, and re- 
mained in a manner immoveable ; he called him by his 
name several times, but received no answer. At last 
Tasso cried out, ^ There is the friendly spirit who is 
come to converse with me : look, and you will be con- 
vinced of the truth of all that I have said.^ Manso 
heard him with surprise : he looked, but saw nothing 
except the sunbeams darting through the window ; he 
cast his eyes all over the room, but could perceive 
nothing, and was just going to ask where the pretended 
spirit was, when he heard Tasso speak with great 
earnestness, sometimes putting questions to the spirit, 
and sometimes giving answers, deHvering the whole in 
such a pleasing manner, and with such elevated ex- 
pressions, that he listened with admiration, and had not 
the least incHnation to interrupt him. At last this un- 
common conversation ended with the departure of the 
spirit, as appeared by Tasso^s words, who, turning to- 
wards Manso, asked him if his doubts were removed. 
Manso was more amazed than ever; he scarce knew 
what to think of his friend's situation, and waved any 
further conversation on the subject.^' 

Ev. I shall forfeit your smile, sweet Castaly, or 
change it, alas ! for a frown. I have ever thought Tasso 
a monomaniac, for he yielded to his illusion. I can give 
you in a fragment from Lorry, the counterpart of Tasso's 
phantasy in a far different mind. ^^ During these 
paroxysms she would talk, and was accustomed to ad- 
dress herself to some one individual present, with whom 
she conversed at first in an obscure voice, but after- 



92 POETIC PHANTASY, OR FRENZY. 

wards in a distinct and audible manner. She evi- 
dently perceived him, and observed all his gestures ; but 
all she said to him bore a reference to one idea, on 
which she was intent. In the mean time she appeared 
not to see or hear any other person, even if he exerted 
his voice to the utmost to make himself heard. This 
fact I witnessed with the greatest astonishment, but 
many other persons are living who can attest it. The 
mother of this female died unexpectedly, after which 
the daughter used to hold conversations with her as if 
she was present. She would answer questions as if in- 
terrogated by her mother ; would entreat her to take 
care of her health, and recommend some physician as 
more able to restore her than others. Moreover, she 
would talk to her mother of her destined marriage, al- 
though it had already been some time completed, in a 
manner perfectly like that of a sane and modest young 
woman, making some objections to it, and replying to 
others, and appeared to be revealing all her secret 
wishes ; in a word, she seemed perfectly collected and 
rational, excepting the error respecting time, and the 
supposed presence of her mother. This woman had 
in other respects good health, but was afraid of the 
smallest noise, and was easily affected by any thing she 
saw or heard. At length she fell into a consumption.^' 
In other cases, especially in accomplished minds, the 
phantasy is usually combined with derangement of health. 
A very ingenuous and elegant young lady, about the age 
of seventeen, was suddenly seized with catalepsy. It 
commenced with violent convulsions of almost every 
muscle of her body, and the most distressing hiccoughs. 
In about an hour came on a fixed spasm, one hand being 
placed against her head, and the other to support it. In 
about half an hour more, the spasm subsided, and then 
began the reverie in a moment, her eyes and expression 
indicating a fixed attention. She then conversed with 



POETIC PHANTASY, OR FRENZY. 93 

imaginary persons, her eyes being wide open, and 
during this ecstasy she was completely insensible to 
the most irritating, and indeed most violent stimuli. 

Sir Henry Halford related to us, that on a visit to a 
person of exalted rank in his chamber, he heard him 
with great energy request Garrick to play a scene in 
'^ Hamlet,^^ reminding him of the lines in Horace^s 
Epistles : 

" Haud ignobilis Argis, 
Qui se credebat miros audire tragoedos, 
In vacuo leetus sessor plausorque theatro." 

In Dr. Darwin, too, we read of an epileptic girl, who 
during a fit of reverie, when insensible to all external 
stimuli^ conversed fluently with imaginary people, and 
was surprised to hear of her illusions when fully awake. 

And, in Andral, of a gentleman of distinguished 
ability, who believed that an absent friend was sitting 
among his guests, welcoming him to his table, and, 
with great courtesy, handing him a chair. You re- 
member how pathetically Crabbe has illustrated this 
illusion in his poem of '' Sir Eustace Gray.^' 

Cast. Hark to the profane philosopher who asso- 
ciates poetry with madness ! Tell me. Master Evelyn, 
while you wandered in the Water walks of Magdalene, 
with the balmy breezes of heaven around your brow, 
and the mellow sunbeam streaming through the green 
leaves upon your cheek, with the inspired volumes of 
Virgil, and Theocritus, and Bion, and Moschus, breath- 
ing nature in all the lines of their beautiful idyls — while 
Astrophel, perchance, was musing among cobwebs in 
Friar Bacon^s study — tell me, felt you not the sublimity 
and truth of poesy ? You remind me of the quaint tra- 
dition among the shepherds of Snowdonia, that if two 
persons lie down, on midsummer eve, to sleep upon a 
certain rock on Snowdon, one will wake a poet, the 



94 POETIC PHANTASY, OR FRENZY. 

other a maniac. I pr'ythee, think otherwise of Tasso^ 
whose reveries were an ecstasy of bright thoughts. 
Even when the light of day is echpsed, as when the 
senseless orbs of Homer and Milton were merged in 
'^ ever- during dark/^ the thoughts of a poet may be 
deeper and clearer for the gloom. 

Ida. And so pure and holy withal. In the " Defen- 
sio Secunda/^ I remember this gem of sentiments : — 
" Involved in darkness, not so much from the imper- 
fection of our optic powers, as from the shadow of the 
Creator's wings, — a darkness which he frequently irra- 
diates with an inner and far superior light.^^ 

Never did poet feel more intensely than Milton the 
truth of that divine thought, that '^ the shadow of God 
is light.'' 

Cast. And call up that glory of the Elizabethan 
age, Phihp Sidney, whose life, in the words of Camp- 
bell, was '^ a poetry in action,'' and who more than 
embodied the brightest pictures of Tasso and Ariosto, 
and echpsed the glory of that Chevalier Bayard, like 
himself, " sans peur et sans reproche." 

Ev. I cry you mercy, fairest ladies, I speak not of 
the light of poetry, but of its shadows. Cheromania 
is the first form of monomania, or the madness of one 
idea ; and this is marked by cheerfulness and splendid 
ideas, which indeed often tend to mitigate the melan- 
choly scenes of derangement, as if " the Hght that led 
astray was light from heaven." I will illustrate this by 
repeating to you the letter to his brother, of a young 
officer, whose progressive changes of mind, from excite- 
ment to confirmed mania, it was my duty to watch over. 

December 'itJi, 1832. 

" To , Esq. 

" I am Lord President of the Counsil, a most 
honorable situation, and the richest gift of the Crown, 



POETIC PHANTASY^ OR FRENZY. 95 

which brings me in seven thousand pounds every year. 
The Counsil consists of Three Secretaries of State^ of 
which I am one ; and the Paymaster of the Forces. 
When the King William the forth shall die, then shall 
be crowned King of England, and be crowned in 
Westermister Abbey, By The Lord Archbishop of 
Canterbury. I shall on the occasion of my coronation 
have placed in the different street of London one 
thousand pipes of wine for my people, and at night 
in the of Hyde the Park a magnificent display of 
Fireworks, and one hundred pieces of Artillery shall 
fire three rounds for the amusement of my people 
and subjects. I have only now to give you a list of 
my titles and honors : 

" King of England. 

First Heir Presumptive to the Crown. 

Major General and Field Martial. 

Duke of Leitzep. 

Prince of Denmark. 

Lord President of the Counsil. 

Knight Banneret. 

Lord Treasurer of the Exchequer. 

Lieutenant Colonel , Lord and Baronet. 

Aid de Camp to the King. 
Champion of England. 

^^ Dear , I wish to acquaint you that Windsor 

Castle belongs to me, that the palace of Brighton also 
belongs to me, also I purchased from the Duke of Wel- 
lington the splendid park and Palace of Stratfieldsea, 
wherein there are very extensive Forests of Oak and of 
Pines trees, together with a magnificent sheet of Water 
containing Ells and Salmon Trout. 

" Dear — — , I have to beg that you give my love 
and duty to your wife — and give this letter to read, 
I pray you, according to my desire and wish.^^ 



96 POETIC PHANTASY^ OR FRENZY. 

I may tell you that the very onset of frenzy is often 
but an elevated spirit of poesy^ in which brilliancy 
and judgment shall be companions ; but^ like ^sop^s 
bow^ the mind shall be warped and wrung by being 
constantly bent on its subject ; and thus the source 
of brilliancy and wit may be the source of madness. 
A change of subject will often do much to unbend 
such a mind, as a change of posture will relieve mus- 
cular fatigue, or as a sudden impression of fear or 
fright has thwarted a suicide on the moment of his 
self-attempt. Indeed mania will often appear to induce 
an almost inspired talent, which, I may hint to you, 
may be explained by the oxygenizing of the blood in 
the brain. 

In Van Swieten, we read of a working female who, 
during fits of insanity, displayed the faculty of rhyming, 
or poetic talent ; and (as I am fond of analogy) in Pinel, 
of one who, during his insane moments, argued (as if 
from concentrated memory) in an acute and intelligent 
manner, on the events of the Revolution. 

Then Haller tells us of an idiot, who was wounded 
on the head, and, during its healing, the intellect be- 
came lucid (and this on the principle of a counter- 
action) ; but, on the healing being completed, again the 
creature was an idiot. 

When we are roaming over the flowery fields of poesy, 
we are seldom inclined to reflect on the mental labour 
by which they are embellished. We may suppose that, 
whatever is born of the brain is ushered in by an easy 
birth ; but poesy is often attended by a pang of partu- 
rition, and one single line may rankle in the brain for 
hours ere it struggle into Hght ; and, perhaps, require a 
frontal blow, as violent as that which cleft the skull of 
Jupiter and gave birth to Pallas. 

There are some minds which can support the eflbrt of 
composition with impunity ; but when we recollect the 



POETIC PHANTASY, OR FRENZY. 97 

diseases which are entailed on genius — the melancholy 
of Cowper, and the distraction of the amiable Collins, 
who 

" passed in madd'ning pain life's feverish dream, 
While rays of genius only served to show 
The thick'ning horror, and exalt his woe ;" 

when we remember the gloomy setting of the brilliant 
sun of Scott, during the period of his apoplectic tendency, 
when his letter " filled the minds of his publishers with 
dismay ,^^ and he sunk into the delusive hope that his 
debts were liquidated to the full; when we are told 
that Ariosto was never seen to laugh, and rarely to 
smile; that Rousseau was ever restless, and on the 
verge of mania; when we reflect on the premature 
decay of unhappy White — 

" When science self destroyed her fav'rite son ;" 

on the painful conflicts of Byron, when his dark hour 
was on him; on Chatterton, "the sleepless boy who 
perishM in his pride i" we are incited, almost uncon- 
sciously to echo the apostrophe of Wordsworth : — 

" We poets in our youth begin in, gladness, 
But thereof comes in the end despondency and madness." 

Ida. The laurel, then, contains more poison than that 
of prussic acid in its leaf. The perils of romance are 
not ever in these extremes ; yet the mere indulgence of 
poetic thoughts may so raise the beau-ideal of beauty 
in the sensitive and youthful mind, as to unfit it for the 
common duties of hfe. Like Narcissus, the heart pe- 
rishes for love of its own shadow. It becomes so acutely 
sensitive, as to " die of a rose in aromatic pain :^^ or like 
the Sybarite, it cannot sleep, because a crumpled rose- 
leaf lay beneath the pillow. 



98 POETIC PHANTASY^ OR FRENZY. 

I have often thought that the secret of happiness 
may he in this precept : " Take the good of hfe as it is, 
a divine gift, and not an agreeable deception f' when 
evil is in your path, search its cause, analyze its nature, 
and if you discover not that you have yourself to thank 
for it, at least you may prove that the evil itself is 
made up of mere trifles, and thus you will learn to be 
resigned. 

And with the beauty and treasures of earth : if you 
possess them, enjoy them with a prudent and a grateful 
heart. If they belong to others, sigh not — pine not 
for them, but analyze them also, and you may find that 
the hope of their enjoyment was a phantom ; for aggre- 
gated beauties are often made up of deformed or un- 
lovely atoms. 

I might illustrate my remarks by relating to you an 
episode of the life of my young friend Stanmore ; from 
which I learned, with sorrow, that the heart may droop 
beneath its own excess of sensibility, (a mystery to 
those who were strangers to its secret,) and that the 
blossom of love may be self-blighted : 

His existence was a withered hope, that, like the 
icicle in the cup of the early flower, freezes the life- 
spring in which it is so deeply embosomed. In his 
mind was lighted a vision of Elysium, beyond what 
earth with all its virtue and beauty could give him : a 
spectral Utopia. His life was a blank. He found not 
happiness, because he knew not contentment. He was 
the leader of many a forlorn hope in Spain, and fell in 
a midnight enterprise among the guerillas in the Sierra 
Morena.^' 

Ev. And had the sword spared him, he would have 
died a moral suicide. 

What folly, thus to chase a butterfly, instead of yield- 
ing to the virtuous influence of woman, which, beyond 
aught else, softens and ennobles man's heart ; entranc- 



POETIC PHANTASY, OR FRENZY. 99 

ing it in floods of human passion^ which, with all its 
pains, yields happiness a thousand-fold more than the 
maudlin sentiments of Rousseau, that, reducing love to 
a mere phantom, leave the lone heart to prey on its 
own sensibility. 

Such was the romantic poet of Endymion, who for 
the phantom of his waking dreams, gave up the study 
of that science, which might have nursed and fortified 
a mind, so soon chilled to death by the icy finger of 
criticism. Erato was the mistress of John Keats ; but 
while he wooed, he perished : like the Rosicrucian, who, 
to save the life of his lady, took the oath of celibacy, 
and thus lost her love for ever. Even in the lecture- 
room of Saint Thomases, I have seen Keats in a deep 
poetic dream: his mind was on Parnassus with the 
muses. And here is a quaint fragment which he one 
evening scribbled in our presence, while the precepts of 
Sir Astley Cooper fell unheeded on his ear : — 

" Whenne Alexandre the Conqueroure was wayfay- 
ringe in y^ londe of Inde, there mette hym a damoselle 
of marveillouse beautie slepynge uponne the herbys and 
flourys. He colde ne loke uponne her withouten grete 
plesance, and he was welle nighe loste in wondrement. 
Her forme was everyche whytte lyke y^ fayrest car- 
vynge of Queue Cythere, onlie thatte y* was swellyd 
and blushyd wyth warmthe and lyfFe wythalle. 

" Her forhed was as whytte as ys the snowe whyche 
y^ talle hed of a Norwegian pyne stelythe from y^ nor- 
therne wynde. One of her fayre hondes was yplaced 
thereonne, and thus whytte wyth whytte was ymyngld 
as y^ gode Arthure saythe, lyke whytest lylys yspredde 
on whyttest snowe ; and her bryghte eyne whenne she 
them oped, sparklyd lyke Hesperus through an evenynge 
cloude. 

" Theye were yclosyd yn slepe, save that two slaun- 
tynge raies shotte to her mouthe, and were theyre 

H 3 



100 POETIC PHANTASY^ OR FRENZY. 

bathyd yn swetenesse, as whenne bye chaunce y^ moone 
fyndeth a banke of violettes and droppethe thereonne 
y* sylverie dewe. 

^^The authoure was goynge onne withouthen des- 
crybynge y^ ladye's breste, whenne lo^ a genyus ap- 
pearyd — ^Cuthberte/ sayeth he, *^an thou canst not 
descrybe y® ladye's breste, and fynde a simile there- 
unto, I forbyde thee to proceede yn thy romaunt/ 
Thys, I kennd fuUe welle, far surpassyd my feble 
powres, and forthwythe I was fayne to droppe my 
quille/^ 



PHANTASY FROM SYMPATHY WITH THE 
BRAIN. 



My eyes are made the fools o' the other senses." 

Macbeth. 



AsTR. I marvel not, lady, that those pencilled brows 
do frown upon the ruthless scholar, who thus dares to 
dismantle the fair realm of poesy, and bind the poppy, 
and the cypress, and the deadly nightshade, with the 
myrtle and the laurel. 

We shall have, ere long, a statute of lunacy against 
the poet and the seer; or hapless, he will imprison thee, 
fair creature, within a cloven pine : and like Prospero, I 
must break my wand and bury it certain fathoms in the 
earth; and, deeper than ever plummet sounded, drown my 
books. The pages of Ptolemy, and Haly, and Agrippa, 
and Lily, will be but bygone fables : and the meta- 
physics of the mighty mind wall be controverted by the 
slicing of the brain and marrow with the knife of these 
anatomists. Nay, we must devoutly believe what they 
so learnedly give out, that frontal headaches in the loca- 
lity of form, colour, and number, and forsooth in the 
organ of wonder too, often accompany spectral illusions, 
and that white or grey ghosts result from excited form 
and deficient colour ! ! 



102 PHANTASY FROM SYMPATHY 

Martin Luther, who was a believer in special in- 
fluence, quarrelled with the physician, who referred its 
mystic signs to natural causes. I am not so uncour- 
teous, yet express my wonder, Evelyn, at the confidence 
with which you presume to the discovery of a material 
reason and a cause, for all the phenomena of our mys- 
terious intellect. 

Ev. And why should I not, dear Astrophel, if I 
search for and discover it in the studies of that sublime 
science, the meditation on which inspired Galen with 
this pious sentiment: ^'Compono hie profecto can- 
ticum in Creatoris nostri laudem.^^ 

Is it more profane to think that the Deity should 
speak to us through the medium of our senses, than by 
the agency of a spirit? Recollect, I have presumed 
neither to enter deeply into metaphysical reasoning, 
nor to describe, minutely, the condition of the brain; 
and I have alluded but slightly to the supposed func- 
tion of its varied structures. Lord Bacon has observed : 
" He who would philosophize in a due and proper man- 
ner must dissect nature, but not abstract her, as they 
are obliged to do who will not dissect her.^^ Dissection, 
however, in its anatomical sense, has not, perhaps can- 
not, elucidate the coincidence of symptom and pathology 
in cases which so seldom prove fatal, and the causes of 
which may be so evanescent. Still, it is only by a 
combination of metaphysical argument and anatomical 
research, with the essential aid of analogy, that the 
phenomena and disease of mind can be fairly investi- 
gated. 

In the important question of insanity, there is an 
error among the mere metaphysicians that is fraught 
with extreme danger — the abstract notion oi moral causes 
being the chief excitement of mania. This error has led 
to that melancholy abuse of the coercive treatment and 
excitement of fear in a maniac ; as if a savage keeper 



WITH THE BRAIN. 103 

possessed the wondrous power of frightening him into 
his wits. Hear what the magniloquent Reil writes on 
this point : " The reception of a lunatic should be amid 
the thunder of cannon; he should be introduced by 
nighty over a drawbridge^ be laid hold of by Moors, 
thrust into a subterranean dungeon, and put into a bath 
with eels and other beasts ?' 

And Lichtenberg, another moral philanthropist, sanc- 
tioned by the divine axiom — ^^ the rod helps God/^ 
urges the employment of coercion and cruelty for this 
sublime psychological reason : that under the infliction 
of the lash and the cane, "the soul is forced to knit 
itself once more to that world, from which the cudgels 
come V' Think ye that these moralists, if not hood- 
winked by false metaphysics, would have so closely 
copied the malevolence of an inquisitor or a devil ? 

We must believe that each illusive representation is 
marked by some change in some certain portion of the 
brain, the function of which bears a reference to the 
subject or nature of the illusion : it may be so minute 
as not to be recognized by our vision. Indeed, if the 
bodily sensations of every human passion be faithfully 
analyzed, it will be proved that there is an unusual feel- 
ing in some part, when even a thought passes through 
the mind, under these definitions : — a thrill, a creeping, 
a glow, a flush, a chill, a tremor, — nay, even fainting, 
convulsion, death. 

Now the brain feels, and thinks, and wills ; but the 
blood is also essential to these faculties. If part of the 
brain is changed, or its circulation deranged, in that 
instant an effect unlike health is produced : and such is 
the illusion of the ghost-seer. Or if the substance of 
the organ of sense, as the eye, be altered, its function is 
deranged, and an illusive spectrum appears to float be- 
fore it. Nay, we are assured by Tiedeman and Gall, 
(opinions of high value,) that they have known patients 



104 PHANTASY FROM SYMPATHY 

who (smile as you please) were mad only on one side of 
the brain, and perceived their madness with the other ; 
and / may assure you, too, that there have been persons 
who really thought with half the brain only. 

I will again claim the courtesy of these fair dames,, 
while I offer another glimpse of the dull cold region of 
physiology. 

Recollect the illustrations I have adduced in allusion 
to those classes, on whose privacy the ghost has the 
privilege of intrusion. I will now offer illustrations of 
those remote influences which vi^ork these seeming mys- 
teries in the sensitive or diseased brain. 

A patient of Dr. Gregory, at the hour of six, one hour 
after dinner, was daily visited by a hag, or incubus, 
which confronted him, and appeared to strike him with 
a crutch. . Immediately on this he would fall from his 
chair in a swoon. This gentleman was reheved by 
bleeding and abstinence. 

The Abbe Pilori, in Florence, invariably saw the 
phantom of scorpions around him, after he had par- 
taken of luncheon. 

There was a gentleman in Edinburgh, learned in 
fourteen languages, of the age of seventy-six. In 1819, 
he began to see strange faces, in old dresses, like paint- 
ings, and his own face changing fi'om young to old ; 
and these phantoms came at his call. Wine drinking 
increased especially these spectres, during the twelve 
years that the illusion continued ; yet his mental facul- 
ties were not much impaired. When eighty years old, 
he came to London to dine with the Knights of the 
Bath, and went back at the rate of a hundi'ed miles 
a-day. His language latterly was a patois of fourteen. 
One night he saw his dead wife^s shadow, and jumped 
after her out of the window, and ran after her through 
the conservatory; yet he remembered, when told that 
his wife was dead, and was then quiet. Disorded diges- 



WITH THE BRAIN. 105 

tion aggravated his case extremely. Mr. Cragg^s opi- 
nion was, that ^^ his thinking was correct, but the 
expression of thought wrong.^^ On examination, the 
dura mater was found adherent to the skull : in parts 
there was a thick effusion and vascularity over the 
brain, and the carotids were partially ossified. 

In a mind excited or exhausted, the natural sympathy 
between the brain and the stomach is wrought up to an 
extreme. And in the two most interesting cases of 
spectral illusion on record, this instance is beautifully 
illustrated. The bookseller of Berlin, Nicolai (whose 
phantasms are become so hackneyed a tale in the re- 
cords of Psychology), had been thus mentally excited. 
It were long to repeat the circumstantial and scientific 
detail of his waking visions ; of his ghosts of departed 
friends, and of strangers to him, and of the groups of 
shadowy figures which glided through his chamber at 
these spectral levees ; and how his philosophic mind 
distinguished the intrusion of ,the spectre at the door 
and the real friend to whom its opening gave admit- 
tance ; and how they disappeared when he shut his 
eyes, and came again as he opened his lids ; or how he 
was at last amused by his analysis of all these illusive 
spectra. But the sympathy to which I have alluded 
will be efficiently proved by one quotation from the 
Prussian's recital. During the time leeches were ap- 
plied to his temples, his chamber was crowded with 
phantoms. " This continued uninterruptedly till about 
half-past four o'clock, when my digestion commenced. 
I then fancied that they began to move more slowly : 
soon after, their colour began to fade, and at seven 
o'clock they were entirely white ; then they seemed to 
dissolve in the air, while fragments of some of them 
continued visible a considerable time." On other occa- 
sions, they attempted to re-appear, and changed to 
white, more and more faintly as his health improved. 



106 PHANTASY FROM SYMPATHY 

There is equal interest^ both for science and curiosity, 
in the illusion of Mrs. A. (as told by Brewster, in his 
^^ Natural Magic ^^), and which sprung from the like 
causes. The sympathetic sensitiveness of this lady was 
so acute, that an expression of pain in another produced 
it in the corresponding part of herself. And she, too, 
was intruded on by spectres of men and women, and 
cats and carriages, and by corpses in shrouds peering 
over her shoulder at her toilet-glass, and ghastly like- 
nesses of gentlemen in grave-clothes, sitting unceremo- 
niously in arm chairs in her drawing-room. And yet 
the perfect restoration of the lady^s health was coinci- 
dent with her complete freedom from these spectral 
visitations. 

You will read in the Anatomic of Melancholy, that 
'' Eremites and anchorites have frequently such absurd 
visions and revelations, by reason of much fasting." In 
exhaustion, too, or on the approach of vertigo, if we 
shut our eyes, we seem as if turning round ourselves, 
and if we open them, then this whimsical movement is 
referred to the chairs and tables in our chamber. 

These, then, are the remote sympathies with the 
organs of digestion; and this chiefly by the derange- 
ment of the circulation of the blood, between the brain 
and the heart. 

In the case of an enlarged heart. Dr. Kelly discovered 
that a dark spectrum was perceived synchronous with 
the systole, or contraction of its ventricles ; so that the 
patient could count his pulse merely by watching the 
motion of this illusive shade on the white ceiling of his 
room. 

The study of these false perceptions, which result 
from derangement or disease of the eye, are replete with 
interest. You are aware that the function of a nerve of 
sensation is so deranged by disease, that in some cases 
of paralysis cold bodies will appear heated. So, by ana- 



WITH THE BRAIN. 107 

logy, is the function of a nerve of sense deranged, if its 
fihrillcR be disordered. 

We have Myopia^ or short sight ; Presbyopia^ or long 
sight ; Chrupsia, or coloured vision. We have night- 
blindness, or dim vision, and day-blindness, or intole- 
rance of light, — as in the albino, or owl. I had, and I 
have now, a second relative, whose vision is insensible 
to certain colours ; and the chemist, Dalton, we know, 
could not distinguish blue from pink. 

In a Glasgow Medical Journal, I read this statement 
by a patient : — " No colour contrasts to me so forcibly 
with black as azure blue, and as you know that the 
shadows of all objects are composed of black, the forms 
or objects which have acquired more or less of this blue 
hue, from being distant, become defined and marked by 
the possession of shadows, which are mvisible to me in 
the high-coloured objects in a foreground, and which 
are thus left comparatively confined and shapeless 
masses of colour.'^ 

The eye may be curtailed of half its object. Mr. 
Abernethy and Dr. WoUaston were both often in this 
dilemma of a sense, so that only one-half of a person or 
a name, on which they were looking, was visible to 
them. Mr. Abernethy, in his facetious way, referring 
to his own name, told us he could see as far as the ne, 
but could not see a bit of the thy. This illusion is at 
once explained by anatomy. The optic nerve, at one 
point, interlaces some, and crosses other of its fibres : 
thus one nerve chiefly supplies one-half of both eyes. 
Disease of nerve may thus paralyse one-half of each 
retina: the other half only perceiving half the object or 
word. 

In many cases of disordered sensibility of the retina, 
it is influenced by the minute villi or vessels in the 
tunics of the eye. In the case of exhausted energy of 



108 PHANTASY FROM SYMPATHY 

this retina, usually accompanied by night-blindness, 
where there is no vision but in a strong light, floating 
specks termed musc(B volitantes often become so nu- 
merous, as to impart a notion of films floating in the 
watery humour of the eye, or before the cornea. It is a 
curious question, in what portion of the retina the 
spectra of muscce volitantes are excited. They appear in 
or near the axis of vision ; but as they do not interrupt 
the visual rays from material objects, it is possible they 
may arise on that spot considered to be destitute of 
vision, with regard to external impression. Or they 
may be produced by detached parts only of the objects, 
which impinge on the retina, reaching the brain. If the 
integrity of certain of its fibres, which by converging 
form the optic nerve, be destroyed, distorted or im- 
perfect objects will be presented. This speck may be a 
musca volitans. 

AsTR. The original impressions in all cases are, I 
presume, from without: how is the internally excited 
idea presented as a prominent image before the eye ? 

Ev. That form of disordered vision to which I allude, 
occurring so often in nervous persons, or resulting from 
close application to study, does not often appear to de- 
pend on a turgid condition of the vessels of the choroid 
coat or retina. It is usually relieved more by tonics 
than by depletion ; and very strange illusions of sight 
will sometimes be produced merely by depressing me- 
dicines, especially the preparations of antimony. Yet 
these dark specks appear to be floating before, and often 
at some distance withoutside the eye. Therefore we 
may believe that excited images or more perfect forms 
may also appear before the retina, palpable. Between 
the first impression and its recurrence, a long period 
may have passed (memory being unlimited) ; and it is 
sufficient that one sole idea be excited to produce a sue- 



WITH THE BRAIN. 109 

cession; as a spark of fire will ignite a train of gun- 
powder ; or as an electric spark will discharge a whole 
battery. 

In the curious case ofphotopsia, or suffusio scintillans, 
we have a series of illusive spectra, in the forms of 
" lucid points/^ and ^^ yellow flames/^ and ^^ fiery veils/^ 
and '^ rings of light.^^ In some cases of ophthalmia, and 
in acute inflammation of the brain, the candles and 
other bright objects in the chamber will look like blood. 
Beguelin, as we read in the '^ Berlin Memoirs/^ by 
straining his eyes on a book, always saw the letters red. 

There is a story in Voltaire, that the Duke of Florence 
threw the dice with a field-oflicer of his enemy. The 
spots on the dice seemed, to his excited hrain, like drops 
of blood : he instantly ordered a retreat of his army. 
And this is not wonderful ; it is but excited sensibility, 
of which many analogies indeed may be artificially pro- 
duced, as the flash of light from the pricking of the 
retina with a fine needle, and the beautiful iris which is 
formed by pressure on the globe of the eye. In the 
very interesting history of the prisoner in the dungeon 
of the Chatelet at Paris, the phosphorescence of the eye 
was itself the source of light, in this instance so power- 
ful as to enable the prisoner to discern the mice that 
came around him to pick up the crumbs, although the 
cell was pitchy dark to others. 

There are many curious illusions resulting from over- 
straining or over-excitement of the eye. 

Dr. Brewster, in the Edinburgh Journal of Science, 
vol. iii. says, '^ If in a fine dark night we unexpectedly 
obtain a glimpse of any object, either in motion or at 
rest, we are naturally anxious to ascertain what it is, 
and our curiosity calls forth all our powers of vision. 
Excited by a feeble illumination, the retina is not capable 
of affording a permanent vision of the object; and while 
we are straining our eye to discover its nature, it will 



110 PHANTASY FROM SYMPATHY 

entirely disappear, and afterwards re-appear and vanish 
alternately. 

A friend of BufFon had been watching the progress of 
an eclipse through a very minute aperture. For three 
weeks after this there was a perfect spectrum of the 
lucid spot marked on every object on which he fixed 
his eyes. 

Dr. Brewster had been making protracted experi- 
ments on some brilliant object, and for several hours 
after this a dark spectrum, associated with intense pain, 
floated constantly before his eye. 

In the third volume of his Physiology, Dr. Bostock 
thus concludes the account of his own ocular spectra : 
" It appeared as if a number of objects, principally 
human faces or figures, on a small scale, were placed 
before me, and gradually removed, like a succession of 
medallions. They were all of the same size^ and ap- 
peared to be all situated at the same distance from the 
face. After one had been seen for a few minutes, it be- 
came fainter, and then another which was more vivid 
seemed to be laid upon it, or substituted in its place, 
which in its turn was superseded by a new appear- 
ance.^' 

Coloured vision may arise from permanent defect or 
from acute disorder : from some pecuhar refraction of a 
ray of fight on the lens of the eye, or by the optical laws 
of the accidental colours. 

The ray of white light consists of the three prismatic 
or primitive colours. Now, if the eye is fatigued by 
one of these colours, or it be lost, mechanically or phy- 
siologically, the impression of two only will remain^ and 
this accidental or complementary colour is composed of 
the two remaining constituents of the white ray. Thus, 
if the eye has been strained on a red colour, it is insen- 
sible to this, but perceives the blue and the yellow, the 
combination of which is green. So, if we look long on 
6 



WITH THE BRAIN. Ill 

a green spot, and then fix the eye on white paper, the 
spectrum will be of light red. A violet spot will become 
yellow ; a blue spot orange-red : a black spot will en- 
tirely disappear on a white ground, for it has no comple- 
mentary colour ; but it appears white on a dark ground, 
as a white spot will change to black. 

By this law I may explain the impression made by 
black letters on the red ground of a play-bill, which ap- 
pear blue. The accidental colour of orange-red is blue ; 
that of black is white. By looking on this, the black 
letter first becomes white, and the accidental colour of 
the red — blue, is transferred to the white ground of the 
letters. 

AsTR. Then, as D^Agessau recommended the parlia- 
ment of Paris to leave the demoniac of our times to the 
physician and not the divine, you would delegate the 
management of all those, to whom the mysterious world 
of shadows is unfolded, to the sapient leech with his 
phials and his lancet. 

Ev. Nay, I presume not to so potent a faculty. 
Many of the slight imperfections of vision are, as I have 
confessed, merely exaggerations of romantic ideas float- 
ing in the memory ; and this is not a novel notion, for 
Plato and other philosophers held it long before our 
time. 

Musc(B volitantes are usually, though not always, 
substantial: i. e. depending on points oy fibres in the axis 
of vision, on congestions, or varicose states of the vessels of 
the choroid or retina, or of atoms floating in the humours. 
These specks, which do not appear alike in the eyes of 
all, and the brilliant beams in the suffusio scintillans, so 
varied and so whimsical, might be readily moulded into 
human form, by the imagination of an enthusiast, or 
the feelings of the ghost-seer, who is usually morose 
and melancholy, in a state of longing for a ghost or a 
mystery. 



112 PHANTASY FROM SYMPATHY WITH THE BRAIN. 

But when many of the more confirmed illusions are 
depending on structural disease in the membranes and 
humours of the eye^ I am confident in the resources of 
our science to relieve, if not to remove. Coleridge in- 
deed has expressed his belief, that by some convulsion 
of the eye, it may see projected before it part of its own 
body, easily magnified into the whole by slight imagina- 
tion. If this be true, the whole mystery of the Death- 
fetch is unravelled. 

The nerves and their ganglia are often diseased, when 
we least suspect : and calcareous and scrofulous tu- 
mours, pressing on the optic axis, in the brain, or on 
the pneumogastric nerve above its recurrent branch, and 
disease in the bronchial glands around the cardiac 
plexus, may exist, with the very slightest sensations of 
pain. Even in extreme disorganization of the brain, there 
may be remissions of painless repose ; and in other cases, 
where pain is synchronous with illusion, the illusion may 
subside although the pain remains; an indication, or 
proof, indeed, of structural cause for the phantasy. And 
this discrimination, Astrophel, of the line of distinction 
between sanity and derangement, is often of a hair's 
breadth ; and the law confesses here the high value of 
pathology, seeing that, in cases of suicide or of idiocy, 
and other states which involve the rites of sepulture, 
the conveyance of entailed estates, or personal responsi- 
bility, the judgment of the physician is held to be 
oracular. 



MYSTERIOUS FORMS AND SIGNS. 



Fierce fiery warriors fight upon the clouds, 
In ranks, and squadrons, and right form of war, 
Which drizzled blood upon the capitol : 
The noise of battle hurtled in the air." 

Julius C^sar. 



AsTR. Methinks you claim too much homage from our 
courtesy to your philosophy^ Evelyn. Can we believe 
that all these wondrous forms and shadows are but an 
illusion of the eye^ or of the mind^s eye? And^ if I 
grant this truth in regard to the eye of one mind^ can 
we so easily libel the evidence of a multitude, to whom 
the world of shadows is unlocked ? 

We are now wandering in the very land of omens ; 
and will this cold philosophy of thine presume to draw 
aside the veil of mystery, which hangs over the moun- 
tain and the cataract of yon wild principality ? 

E^en now the legends of many climes crowd on my 
memory ; and, while this purple cloud is o'er the sun, 
listen, I pr'ythee, to the traditions which I have ga- 
thered ; muse on the sequences of these strange ap- 
pearances, and you will at length confess, with the 
Benedictine Calmet — ^^ Realite des apparitions est prou- 
vee par I'evenement des choses predites.'' 

I 



114 MYSTERIOUS FORMS AND SIGNS. 

The Tan-we or Tan-wed are streams of lucid fire, 
rolling along the lands of a freeholder, who, warned of 
his coming fate, immediately makes his will, and shortly 
after dies. 

Among the gloomy gorges of Preselle, in Pembroke- 
shire, comes dancing on that blue wild-fire the ^'^Canwyl 
y Cyrph,^^ or ^^ Corpse-candle/^ As the shades of evening 
are approaching, the spectre of the doomed comes flit- 
ting before us, with a lighted taper in its hand, and 
with a solemn step halts not until it rests on its destined 
grave, in the church-yard ground. If dignities and 
fortune have been the earthly lot of this doomed mortal, 
then is there shadowed forth an awful pageantry of 
hearse and ghostly steeds, and mute mourners, all glid- 
ing away to the place of the tomb, and, like the phan- 
toms of the Aensprecker, in Holland, (a funeral proces- 
sion of no less fatahty,) they foretel the doom of some 
ill-fated friend. 

Among the dingles of the Bachwy, in Radnorshire, 
amid scenery of wild and lonely beauty, a few rugged 
stones denote the site of an ancient castle of a Welsh 
prince ; it is the ruin of the ^^ Black Rock.^^ The op- 
posing masses of this eternal rock, tapestried with deep 
green moss and lichen, fold in upon the stream directly 
over its matchless cataract, which falls abruptly from 
the upper to the lower valley into this gloomy gorge ; 
the sunbeam playing on the upper ledge of the water- 
fall, while its deep basin is shrouded in Stygian darkness. 
Into this gulph it was the pleasure of the prince to hurl 
from his castle walls, those whom fate had made his 
prisoners. Often since the era of these cruelties, (as I 
learned from the oral legends of the peasants,) before a 
death, a strange unearthly groaning is heard, the ^' Ky- 
hirraeth,^^ becoming fainter and fainter until the last 
gasp of the mortal whose doom it forebodes. 

There is the dead-bell, which the Scottish peasants 



MYSTERIOUS FORMS AND SIGNS. 115 

believe to foretel the death of a friend ; and the death- 
cart of Lancashire^ which is heard rattling along the 
streets Uke a whirlwind; and the Owke Mouraske, a 
demon of Norway^ which never enters a house but some 
one of the family dies within the year. We are assured 
also by the Saxon^ Cranmer^ that ere one of the elec- 
toral house of Brandenburgh dies^ a woman in white 
appears to many throughout the dominions of Prussia. 

The wild mountains that surround us are prolific in 
the "Anderyn y CorfF/^ or ^^ Corpse-bird/^ and the 
^^ Cwm Amon/^ or '^ Dogs of Hell/^ which are believed 
to be demons of deaths in the shape of hounds^ and, 
like the mongrel of Faust, marked by a train of fire. 
These howl forth their awful warning, while the death- 
peal rings in the ears of the nearest kin of one about 
to die. 

There is the legend of the " Ellyllon," a prototype 
of the Scotch and Irish " Banshie,^^ which appears as 
an old crone, with streaming hair and a coat of blue, 
with her boding scream of death. The "Gwrach y 
Rhibyn,^^ or " Hag of the Dribble,^^ whose pastime is 
to carry stones in her apron across the mountains, and 
then to loosen her apron-string, and by the shower of 
stones to make a ^^ dribble.'^ This hag, at twilight, 
flaps her raven wing against the chamber window of a 
doomed creature, and, with a howl, cries out, " A a a ui 
ui Anni.^^ 

In the wilderness of Zin, which stretches between 
Palestine and the Hed Sea, both the Bedouin Arab and 
the traveller are greeted by the sound of matin bells, 
like the convent peal which calls the nuns to their de- 
votion ; and this, according to tradition, has been heard 
ever since the crusades. 

Then there is a fatal spirit of the desert, which, like 
an ignis fatuus, lures men to destruction, by 

" Airy tongues that syllable men's names." 

i2 



116 MYSTERIOUS FORMS AND SIGNS. 

The Venetian traveller^ Marco Polo^ writes of those 
who^ wandering unwarily from the track of the caravans 
in Tartaiy^ hear the phantom voice of some dear friend 
(who indeed sometimes appears in person), which 
entices them from the route, and they perish in the 
desert. 

And Lord Lindsay, in his travels through Egypt and 
the defiles of Edom, tells us one circumstantial story 
from Vincent de Blanc, of a man decoyed away from 
the caravan of an Arabian merchant by the entreaties 
of a phantom voice. 

Before an heir of Chfton of Clifton sleeps in death, a 
sturgeon is always, it is affirmed, taken in the river 
Trent. This incident, hke many others, becomes im- 
portant from its consequence. 

The park of Chartley is a wild and romantic spot, in 
its primitive state, untouched by the hand of the agri- 
culturist, and was formerly attached to the royal forest 
of Needwood, and the honour of Tutbury, of the whole 
of which the ancient family of De Ferrars were once the 
puissant lords. Their immense possessions, now forming 
part of the duchy of Lancaster, were forfeited by the 
attainder of Earl Ferrars, after his defeat at Burton 
Bridge, where he led the rebellious barons against 
Henry IIL The Chartley estate, being settled in 
dower, was alone reserved, and handed down to its pre- 
sent possessor. In the park is preserved, in its primi- 
tive purity, the indigenous Staffordshire cow, small in 
stature, of a sand-white colour, with black ears, muzzle, 
and tips at the hoofs. In the year of the battle of Burton 
Bridge, a black calf was born, and the downfal of the 
great house of Ferrars happening at the same period, 
gave rise to the tradition, which to this day has been 
held in veneration by the common people, that the 
birth of a party-coloured calf from the wild breed in 
Chartley Park, is a sure omen of death within the same 



MYSTERIOUS FORMS AND SIGNS. II7 

year to a member of the lord^s family. A calf of this 
description has been born whenever a death has hap- 
pened in the family of late years. The decease of the 
last earl and his countess^ of his son Lord Tamworth, 
of his daughter^ Mrs. William JollifTe^ as well as the 
deaths of the son and heir of the present nobleman and 
his daughter, Lady Frances Shirley, have each been 
forewarned by the ominous birth of a spotted calf. In 
the spring of a late year, an animal perfectly black was 
calved by one of this weird tribe, in the park of Chart- 
ley, and this birth also has been followed by the death 
of the countess. 

In the beautiful chapel of Rosslinne, founded by 
William Saint Clair, prince of Orkney, there is a legend 
of the spectral light, which illumined its gothic beauty, 
on the eve of a death among his descendants. And my 
sweet Castaly will remember how pathetically Harold 
sings the fate of Rosabelle Saint Clair. 

In other districts, on the coming of such an event, 
these lights are seen of various colours, and are termed 
" Dr'Eug,''— ^'the Death of the Druid;'' and they also 
marshal the funeral procession to the very verge of the 
grave. 

Dr. Caldicot solemnly writes, that when a Christian 
is drowned in the Dee, a light appears over the spot, 
by which the body is easily discovered ; and hence the 
river is called " Holy'' Dee. 

The mysteries of the "Skibbereen Lights" are re- 
corded by an honourable gentleman of Ireland, and 
ladies and philosophers journeyed far to behold them, 
and believed. — In a cottage in a marshy flat near Bantry 
lived a man named Harrington, a perfect anatomie 
vivante, and bedridden, — his heart devout^ — his books 
all of a religious kind. In his chamber, strange lights 
soon appeared, at first like the dim moonlight on the 
wall, deepening often into yellow light, and flickering 



118 MYSTERIOUS FORMS AND SIGNS. 

round the room. There was often a group of Uterati 
and fashion assembled there^ on whom the Hght danced 
and displayed all the various emotions of the parties. 
Once at noon, but mostly at midnight, the light ap- 
peared ; and on all occasions Harrington seemed to 
anticipate before others beheld them. Science has 
searched for causes ; but neither in the arts of an im- 
postor, or the natm-al exhalation of luminous gases, 
has been yet discovered a solution of this mystery. 

In the wild countiy around Dolgelly, where Cader 
Idris frowns upon the floods and fells of Merioneth, — 
where the Mawddach, after its magnificent fall, rolls its 
waters through the brown and purple valley to join the 
Wonion, and then expand into the mountain estuary of 
Abermaw, — the wanderer will hear from many lips this 
current story. 

On a dark evening, a few winters ago, some persons 
were returning to Barmouth, on the south or opposite 
side of the river. As they approached the ferry-house 
at Penthryn, which is directly opposite Barmouth, they 
observed a light near the house, which they conjectured 
to be produced by a bonfire ; and greatly puzzled they 
were to discover the reason why it should have been 
Hghted. As they came nearer, however, it vanished ; 
and when they inquired at the house respecting it, they 
were surprised to learn, that not only had the people 
there displayed no light, but they had not even seen 
one, nor could they perceive any signs of it on the 
sands. On reaching Barmouth, the circumstance was 
mentioned, and the fact corroborated by some of the 
people there, who had also plainly and distinctly seen the 
light. It was settled, therefore, by some of the old 
fishermen, that this was a " death token ;^' and sure 
enough the man who kept the ferry at that time was 
drowned at high water a few nights afterwards, on the 
very spot where the light was seen. He was landing 

6 



MYSTERIOUS FORMS AND SIGNS. 119 

from the boat, when he fell into the water, and so 
perished. 

The same winter the Barmouth people, as well as the 
inhabitants of the opposite banks, were struck by the 
appearance of a number of small lights, which were 
seen dancing in the air at a place called Borthwyn, 
about half a mile from the town. A great number of 
people came out to see these lights, and after a while 
they all but one disappeared, and this one proceeded 
slowly towards the water's edge, to a little bay where 
some boats were moored. The men in a sloop which 
was anchored near the spot saw the light advancing ; 
they saw it also hover for a few seconds over one par- 
ticular boat, and then totally disappear. Two or three 
days afterwards the man to whom that particular boat 
belonged was drowned in the river, while he was sailing 
about Barmouth harbom- in that very boat. 

On a lofty mountain, rising over Marbach in Austria, 
stands the church of Maria-Taferl ; and miracles on mi- 
racles are related of this sacred spot, since the time 
when the '' Vesperbild,'' an image of the Virgin, was 
fixed on its oak. Even angels have visited the shrine. 
In the 17th century these angelic visitants appeared in 
processions bearing a red cross, while stars shone 
around the head of the Virgin. On one occasion a red 
cross was borne along and a taper was lighted, hy no 
mortal hand, at the feet of the Vesperbild ; and this is 
recorded and attested by the crowd who gazed in won- 
der on the miracle. 

The trials of the two divines, John Huss and Wick- 
liffe, were marked by awful and impressive phenomena. 
While the tribunal was sitting in judgment on Wick- 
Uffe, the monastery in which the Enghsh monks had 
assembled was nearly overwhelmed by an earthquake. 
And it chanced, that while the council were in high 
assembly at Constance, which condemned Huss to the 



120 MYSTERIOUS FORMS AND SIGNS. 

stake^ the eclipse, which over that city was nearly total, 
occurred, and the consternation of the people, at that 
time prone to the belief of miracles, was extreme. 

" The night had wan'd ; but darkness and dismay 
Rose with the da^\-n, and blotted out the day. 
The council's warder, struck with sudden fear, 
Dropt from his palsied hand th' uplifted spear. 
Aghast each gazer saw the mystic power, 
That rob'd in midnight's pall the matia hour ; 
While hurraing feet, and wailings to and fro, 
Spread the wild panic of impending woe. 
The pruice and prelates shudder'd at the sign : 
The monk stood dumb before the darken'd shi-ine ; 
With faltering hand uprais'd the cross on high. 
To chase that dismal omen from the sky." 

The wonders told me by one of my reverend an- 
cestors of the "Aiirora,^^ years ago, are so circum- 
stantial, and withal so prophetic, that well might she, 
like the Lady of Branxholme, believe that " spmts were 
riding the northern blast.^^ 

Speed repeats a record in the '^ Ypodigma Neustriae^^ 
of ^^ Walsingham,^^ that the rebellion of the Percies was 
preceded by spectral battles in Bedfordshu^e, " sundry 
monsters of divers colours and shapes issuing from 
woods,^^ &c. 

Remember, it is a matter of history, that phantasms 
were seen by numbers in Whitehall during the Com- 
monwealth. And the wondrous narrative of TTie Just 
Devil of Woodstock, which was writ in 1649, by Master 
Widows, the learned clerk of Woodstock, "who each 
day put in writing what he heard from the mouths of 
the commissioners, and such things as they told to have 
befallen them the night before ; therein keeping to their 
own words :^^ — ^the coney-steal ers were so alarmed that 
they left their ferrets beyond Rosamond's well. And 
this he saith also, that '' At Saint James's the Devil so 
joaled the centinals against the sides of the Queen's 



MYSTERIOUS FORMS AND SIGNS. 121 

Chappell doors^ that some of them fell sick upon it^ and 
others^ not taking warning by it^ killed one outright ; 
and all other such dreadful things those that inhabited 
the royal houses have been affrighted with/^ 

I remember not the source from which I gleaned 
some mysteries of ^' The Lyffe of Virgilius/^ a professor 
of the occult sciences^ alluded to, I believe^ in Gower's 
^^ Confessio Amantis/^ and identified with the Mantuan 
poet, — a magus, who " dyd many marvayles in hys lyfe 
tyme by whychcrafte and nygramancye thorowgh the 
helpe of the devyls of hell/' One of these marvels I 
well recollect. This Virgil was cut up, salted and 
pickled, at his own request, in a barrel; and when the 
emperor discovered him, he slew Virgilius' man, and 
'^^ then sawe the emperoure and all his folke a nakyd 
chylde, three tymes rennynge aboute the barell, sayinge 
the wordes, ^ Cursed be the tyme that ye cam ever 
here;' and with those wordes vanyshed the chylde 
away." 

Then in the associations of lucky days and influential 
colours, is there not often a striking truth ? 

Sir Kenelm Digby, writes Master Aubrey, among 
other wonders of his " Miscellanies," was born, fought, 
and conquered at Scanderoon, and died, — on the 11th 
day of June. 

In a book, printed in 1687, we learn that the four- 
teenth of October was a lucky day for the princes of 
England. On it William the Conqueror won the crown : 
Edward III. landed: and James II. was born. 

In the eventful life of Napoleon, the number eighteen 
was associated with so many important events, that you 
will scarce deny something more than casualty. Such 
were, the engagement from which he assumed the con- 
sulate : that of Torlina on the river Beresina : the battles 
of Leipsic and of Waterloo : which were all fought on 
the 18th of the month. On that day also his corpse 



122 MYSTERIOUS FORMS AND SIGNS. 

was landed on St. Helena : and on the 18th also the 
" Belle Poule" sailed with his remains for France. 

As of the Emir of the East^ green was the favourite 
colour of the " Daoine Shi/^ or men of peace, in Scot- 
land ; and the Druids waved a green standard, as we read 
in the Scandana, when they fought with the Fingal- 
lians. From some cause, perchance from their adoption 
of it, this colour was fatal to the clan " Grahame.^^ The 
Highlanders believe to this day that the field of Killi- 
crankie was lost because Dundee was habited in green 
uniform ; and an old Graeme, when his horse stumbled 
at a fox-chace, referred his disaster to his green whip- 
cord. 

Do not so many sequences prove a consequence ? 

Ev. You do not mince the matter, Astrophel ; in- 
deed, from the boldness of your display, I might think 
you had kissed the blarney -stone, hj which charm, the 
Irish believe you will ever after be free from bashful- 
ness. 

But coincidence, and the natural leaning of the mind 
to superstition, will unfold all your mysteries : and 
these your illustrations (I cannot term them argu- 
ments,) are even weaker than the former. Remember, 
that the mind of some beings is impressible as the 
yielding wax, and especially, if under the constant in- 
fluence of other minds ; which, as continual dropping 
will wear away a stone, first tends to bewilder, and, at 
length, to convince. And as to the special trifles to 
which you allude, although it is certain a sparrow falls 
not to the ground without a Providence, and the hairs 
of our head are all numbered, I cannot believe that the 
Creator will thus alter a gigantic law for an atom. 



ANALYSIS AND CLASSIFICATION OF SPEC- 
TRAL ILLUSION. 



■ The earth hath hubbies, as the water has, 
And these are of them." Macbeth. 



Ev. You are a most industrious gleaner among the 
sheaves of history^ Astrophel. But why, in all these 
seeming prophecies, seek to thwart the harmonious 
course of nature ? Leave superstition to the heathen 
and the savage : be assured, in the words of Principal 
Robertson, that a vain desire of prying into futurity is 
the error of the infancy of a people, and a proof of its 
weakness. 

From this weakness proceeded the faith of the Ame- 
ricans in dreams, their observation of omens, their 
attention to the chirping of birds and the cries of ani- 
mals, all which they supposed to be indications of 
future events. And if any one of these prognostics was 
deemed unfavourable, they instantly abandoned the 
pursuit of those measures on which they were most 
eagerly bent. 

I wonder you brought not some classic proofs of this 
credulity, for such were all-prevalent in Judaea and 
the Eternal City. 



124 ANALYSIS AND CLASSIFICATION 

Thus, on February the thirteenth, the Romans were 
conquered by the Gauls : henceforward important acts 
were never undertaken on its anniversary: nor on 
August the tenth by the Jews, because their first temple 
was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar, and the other by 
Titus, long afterwards, on that day of the month. 

I am not, however, without some curious stories of 
very modern date ; one anecdote may be recognised on 
the Stock Exchange. A wealthy Hebrew, who was 
wont to fling his gold even into the lap of kings, was 
once standing on a certain stone, at the Post Office, 
when he received a letter, on which he speculated, and 
lost 20,000/. On this he cautioned his friends never to 
stand on that stone, lest a similar ill-fortune should 
attend them. 

The mind of this man was a storehouse of super- 
stition — an omen was his leading star. A drove of pigs 
would check the completion of a mighty bargain, and a 
flock of sheep would prompt him to sign his name to a 
million. 

The three brothers of his great house were once on 
their way to Lord Liverpool, in order to the completion 
of a loan to the Treasury ; when, lo ! an army of swine 
met them on their way. There was no more progress 
to Downing Street that day ; but they retired to Stam- 
ford Hill, and the Lord Treasurer waited twenty-four 
hours for the Hebrews^ gold. 

With Brinsley Sheridan, Friday was a sort of holi- 
day ; neither journeys were undertaken, nor new plays 
allowed to be produced, on that day. 

I presume you were ashamed to adduce ornitho- 
scopy, or the divination by birds, as an illustration. 
Do you forget the mystic influence of three crows on 
man^s destiny ? But I will tell you an oriental fable ; 
how an accomplished Jew, named Mosollam, puzzled 
an augur, by shooting a beautiful bird, from which the 



OF SPECTRAL ILLUSIONo 125 

augur was about to prophecy on the fate of an expedi- 
tion. "^ Why/^ said Mosollam^ " did not the bird fore- 
know the fate which awaited it? why did it not fly 
away — or why come at all ? 

AsTR. I believe the augur did or might answer, that 
" a prophet may be ordained to tell the fate of nations, 
but not his oivnP 

Ev. Another vague supposition, Astrophel : there is 
much virtue in these may he^s, 

I have listened to your legends, and you will now 
listen to me, while I presume to illustrate my own 
proofs, searching for my causes in the beautifid eccen- 
tricities of nature alone; and a scholar like yourself, 
Astrophel, with whom I have so often chopped Oxford 
logic, will grant it is a precept in philosophy not to 
seek for more causes, than the explanation of the fact 
requires. 

On this scroll I have sketched an arrangement of 
phantoms or ghosts, in two grand classes. 



or 
PHANTASMA. 

Illusive joerception, or ocular i Conversion of natural ob- 

spectra. I jects into phantoms. 

Illusive co?zception, or spec- f ^ ,. r i . 

_ „, ,^ ^ ^ { Creation of phantoms, 
tral illusion. I 



or 
OPTICAL ILLUSION. 

4 , T . ( Refraction. 

Atmospheric. \ ^ n 

t Reflection. 

Gases. 

Lenses and mirrors. 

Disease of the eye. 



126 ANALYSIS AND CLASSIFICATION 

In the first class there is no real or palpable object, 
or, if there be, it is not what it appears ; the illusion is 
but the reality of romance, depending altogether on 
excited or disordered conditions of the mind : the source, 
therefore, either of bright or gloomy phantoms, as the 
mood may be. 

On this scroll I have recorded those moods of mind, 
which, excited by memory or association, or influenced 
by such casualties as solitude, moonlight darkness, or 
localities of interest, or the poring over tales of horror at 
midnight, may be considered the predisposing causes of 
illusion. Such are : — 

Temperament. . .Credulity, 

Enthusiasm, 

Superstition, 

Timidity, 

Imagination, 

Poetic frenzy. 
Excitement. . . .Sympathy, 

Exalted joy. 

Deep grief. 

Love, 

Hatred, 

Protracted anxiety, 

DeHrium of fever. 

Delirium of alcohol. 

Delirium of narcotics. 

Exhaustion, 

Disease of the brain. 

The second class, which are spectres or ghosts of 
the eye, may be scientifically explained by the laws 
which govern the material world. These are the only 
substantial ghosts which I can grant to my friend. 
The objects themselves exist, and are exactly as they 
appear. The philosopher regards them as interesting 



OF SPECTRAL ILLUSION. 127 

exceptions to general rules, from peculiar combinations 
of natural causes. The unlearned will term them pre- 
ternatural phenomena, simply because they are of un- 
common occurrence. But which among the works of 
divine creation is not a phenomenon ? We may think 
we know a law of nature, but can we analyse it ? No- 
velty and magnitude astonish, but that which is familiar 
excites not our surprise. We gaze with delight on the 
progress of an eclipse ; we watch with wonder the ec- 
centric course of the comet ; but we look on the sun in 
its meridian glory with a cold and apathetic indifference. 
Yet do they all ahke display Divine Omnipotence, and 
the expansion of a vegetable germ, the bursting of a 
flower, is as great a miracle as the overwhelming of a 
deluge, the annihilation of a mighty world. 

To discriminate between these classes is not difficult : 
we may prove their nature by simple experiment. Opti- 
cal illusions will be doubled by a straining or altering of 
the axes of the eyes ; and, by turning round, as they 
are removed from the axis of vision, they will disappear. 

So, indeed, will those of the second class, which are 
real objects converted into phantoms by mental excite- 
ment or disorder. 

But in the purely metaphysical ghost or phantom, the 
change of position or locality will not essentially dispel 
the illusion, (the spectrum following, as it were, the 
motion of the eye ;) because it exists in the mind itself, 
either as a faint or transient idea, or a mere outline, 
fading perhaps in a brighter light, or as the more 
permanent and confirmed impression of insanity, (un- 
changed even by "brilliant glare,^^) or from the day^ 
dream of the castle-builder, to the deep and dreadful 
delusion of the maniac. 

Among the mute productions of nature, there are 
eccentricities and rarities, which, in default of analysis 
or explanation, would not fail of being referred to some 



128 ANALYSIS AND CLASSIFICATION 

supernatural agency : as Leo Afer, according to Burton, 
accounts for the swarms of locusts once descending at 
Fez, in Barbary, and at Aries, in France, in 1553. '^ It 
could not be from natural causes ; they cannot imagine 
whence they come, but from heaven. Are these and 
such creatures, corn, wood, stones, worms, wool, blood, 
&c. lifted up into the middle region by the sunbeams, 
as Baracellus the physician disputes, and thence let fall 
with showers, or there engendered ? Cornelius Gemma 
is of that opinion, they are there conceived by celestial 
influences : others suppose they are immediately from 
God, or prodigies raised by arts and illusions of spirits 
which are princes of the ayre.'^ 

Over Languedoc there once burst an awful and super- 
natural cloud, from which fell immense snow-flakes like 
glittering stars. There is nothing strange in this, for 
the shape of the snow-flake is ever that of an asteroid. 
But then there came pouring down gigantic hail-stones, 
with their glassy surface impressed with the figures of 
helmets, and swords, and scutcheons. This too may 
be the effect of very sudden and irregular congelation ; 
but this law was not known, and therefore its result 
was a mystery. 

Among the wonders seen by the great traveller, 
Pietro della Valla, was the bleeding cypress-tree, which 
shadows the tomb of Cyrus, in Italy. Under the hollow 
of its boughs, in his day, it was lighted with lamps and 
was consecrated as an oratory. To this shrine resorted 
many a devout pilgrim, impressed with a holy belief in 
the miracle. And what was this but the glutinous 
crimson fluid, exuding from the diseased alburnum of a 
tree, which the woodmen indeed term bleeding^ but 
which the ancient Turks affirmed, or believed, to be 
converted on every Friday into drops of real blood ? 

The red snow, which is not uncommon in the arctic 
regions, is thus tinted by very minute cryptogamic 



OF SPECTRAL ILLUSION. 129 

plants ; and the fairy ring is but a circle of herbage 
poisoned by a fungus. 

In Denbighshire (I may add) the prevalent belief is, 
that the shivering of the aspen is from sympathy with 
that tree in Palestine, which was hewn into the true 
cross. 

The simple stratification of vapours, especially during 
sudden transitions of temperature, may produce very 
interesting optical phenomena ; not by refraction or re- 
flection, but merely by partial obscuration of an object. 
We have examples of these illusive spectra in the 
gigantic icebergs seen by Captain Scoresby, and other 
arctic voyagers, which assumed the shape of towers, and 
spires, and cathedrals, and obelisks, that were constantly 
displacing each other in whimsical confusion and end- 
less variety, like the figures of a kaleidoscope. Phipps 
thus describes their majestic beauty: '^'^The ice that 
had parted from the main body, they had now time to 
admire, as it no longer obstructed their course; the 
various shapes in which the broken fragments appeared 
were indeed very curious and amusing. One re- 
markable piece described a magnificent arch, so large 
and completely formed, that a sloop of considerable 
burden might have sailed through it without lowering 
her masts. Another represented a church, with win- 
dows, pillars, and domes.'^ 

We may scarcely wonder at the mystifications of na- 
ture, when she assumes these gorgeous eccentricities, 
as have been witnessed also in the barren steppes of 
the Caraccas, on the Orinoko, where the palm-groves 
appear to be cut asunder ; in the Llanos, where chains 
of hills appear suspended in the air, and rivers and 
lakes to flow on arid sand ; in the lake of the Gazelles, 
seen by the Arabs and the African traveller ; and the 
lakes seen by Captain Munday, during his tour in 
India. 



130 ANALYSIS AND CLASSIFICATION 

The very clearness of the atmosphere, like that which 
floats around the Rhine, renders distance especially dis- 
tinct ; but mountainous regions, from the attraction of 
electric clouds, afford the highest examples of atmo- 
spheric beauty and effect. London and other cities, 
however crowded with lofty buildings, are not deficient 
in these aerial illusions. Even from the bridge of 
Blackfriars I have seen a cumulo stratus cloud so 
strangely intersect the steeples and the giant chimneys 
of London, as distinctly to represent a sea-port, with its 
vessels and distant mountains. 

We have among us several minor illusions, which are 
only less imposing because more familiar ; and though 
often occurring, few are recorded with scientific ac- 
curacy. The phosphorescence of the marshes, the 
ignis fatuus. Will o^Wisp, Jack o^ the Lanthorn, or 
Friar Rush, and the corpse-candles, are mere luminous 
exhalations, strained into the marvellous by the vulgar, 
and thus set down as heralds of mortality. The dancing- 
light of luminous flies has been termed the green light of 
death ; and, if you wish for more, Astrophel, read the 
^^Armorican Magazine^^ of John Wesley, or the quaint 
volume of Burton, and thereabouts where he writes in 
this fashion: "The thickness of the aire may cause 
such effects, or any object not well discerned in the 
dark, fear and phantasie will suspect to be a ghost or 
devil. Glowwormes, firedrakes, meteors, ignis fatuus, 
which Plinius calls Castor and Pollux, with many such 
that appear in moorish grounds, about church-yards, 
moist valleys, or where battles have been fought, the 
causes of which read in Goclenius, Velcurius, Finkius, 
he:' 

The Parhelia, or mock suns, are produced by the re- 
flection of the sun^s light on a frozen cloud. How 
readily these phenomena are magnified you may learn 
from ancient and modern records. In 1223 four suns 



OF SPECTRAL ILLUSION. 131 

were seen of crimson, inclosed in a wide circle of crystal 
colpur. This is natural : but then comes the miracle. 
In the same year two giant dragons were seen in the 
air, flapping their monstrous wings and engaging in 
single combat, until they both fell into the sea and were 
drowned ! Then, in 1104, there were seen four white 
circles rolled around the sun : and in 1688, two suns 
and a reversed rainbow appeared at Bishop^s Lavington, 
in Wiltshire : and in February, 1647, there is an account 
and sketch of three suns, and an inverted rainbow, 
which Baxter terms " Binorum Pareliorum ^aivofxevov.'^ 
And because there were two lunar and one solar eclipses 
in 1652, it was called, as Lily records, ^^ Annus tene- 
brum,^^ or " the dark year.^^ 

The Corona, or halo around the sun, moon, and 
stars, is easily illustrated by the zone formed by placing, 
during a frost, a hghted candle in a cloud of steam or 
vapour. 

The Aurora Borealis is arctic electricity, and is beau- 
tifully imitated by the passage of an electric flash 
through an exhausted glass cylinder. 

The rainbow is a combination of natural prisms break- 
ing the light into colours ; and it may be seen in the 
cloud, or in the spray of the ocean, or in the beautiful 
cascades of Schaffhausen, Niagara, or Terni, or indeed 
in any foaming spray on which the meridian sunbeams 
fall, or even in the dewy grass, lying, as it were, on the 
ground. 

When the sun shines on a cloud, there is always a 
bow produced visible to all who are placed at the proper 
angle. The lunar rainbow is achromatic, or destitute of 
colour, because reflected light is not easily refracted into 
colour. In a brilliant sunset the floods of light around 
him often indicate the gradation of prismatic colouring. 

Cast. In some waterfalls I have seen the Iris form a 
complete circle ; as in the Velino at Terni, and in others, 

k3 



132 ANALYSIS AND CLASSIFICATION 

especially in Ionia and Italy. A perfect illusion is pro- 
duced, for the bow seems to approach the spectator and 
then recede, as if Juno were sending her messenger on 
some special mission. There are many minds which 
would yield with delight to this conviction, and such 
probably was the illusion of Benvenuto CeUini — was it 
not ? " This resplendent light is to be seen over my 
shadow till two o'clock in the afternoon, and it appears 
to the greatest advantage when the grass is moist with 
dew. It is likewise visible in the evening at sunset. 
This phenomenon I took notice of when I was at Paris, 
because the air is exceedingly clear in that chmate, so 
that I could distinguish it there much plainer than in 
Italy, where the moists are much more frequent, &c.'^ 
A consciousness of superior talent, and probably the 
homage which was paid him even by the members of 
the holy conclave, were the springs of this flattering 
vision. 

Ida. The beauty of these must light up even the 
fancy of a child, yet a holier feeling will ever inspire a 
Christian philosopher, when the bow is seen in the 
cloud, for it was the sign of the covenant. There is, 
indeed, something in the glories of the firmament which 
never fails to elevate my own thoughts, and I can rea- 
dily sympathise with the Spanish religionists of the 
fifteenth century, and with the North Americans, who 
gaze upon the beautiful constellation of the ^^ Southern 
Cross,'' insulated as it is from all other stars in its own 
dark space ; in solemn belief that it is the great symbol- 
ical banner held out by the Deity in approval of their 
faith. 

Ev. The " Fata Morgana," in the straits of Reggio, 
presents a perfect scene of enchantment ; when the 
shouts of ^^ Morgana, Morgana," echo from rock and 
mountain, as the wondering people flock in crowds to 
the shore. During this splendid illusion, gigantic 



OF SPECTRAL ILLUSION. 133 

columns^ and cloud-capt towers^ and gorgeous palaces^ 
and solemn temples^ are floating on the verge of the 
horizon^ and sometimes beneath this picture of a city, 
on the very bosom of the water, ?i fainter spectrum may 
be seen, which is a reflected image of the other. These 
spectra are usually colourless, but if certain watery va- 
pours are floating in the air, they are beautifully fringed 
with the three primitive colours of the prism. Such 
also is the illusion of the Calenture, or sylvan scenes of 
the ocean. 

Cast. Let us seek these wonders of the waters, As- 
trophel ; perchance we might, in some enchanted hour, 
see even beneath yon Severn flood the grotto of Sa- 
brina, with its green and silver weeds, its purple shells 
and arborescent corallines ; and, if we dive into the 
depths of the sea, might we not light on the palace of 
Amphitrite, and, while the Nereids and Tritons were 
mourning over the desolation of a shipwreck, hear the 
echo of some ArieFs song ^^ full fathom five,^^ undulating 
through the water; or realise the overwhelming of 
Maha-Velipoor, in the curse of Kehama : 

" Their golden summits in the noontide ray, 
Shone o'er the dark green deep, that roll'd between ; 
For domes, and piimacles, and spires were seen 
Peering above the sea." 

Or the legend of Thierna Na Oge, in Lough Neagh, 
in Ireland ; for Moore has sung — 

" On Lough Neagh's banks, when the fisherman strays, 
He sees the round towers of other days ;" 

and why may not we ? 

Who that has wandered among the dark mountains 
of Brecon, remembers not the blue pool of Lynsavaddon, 
and h^s not listened to the tales of the mountaineers, of 
the city over which to this day its waves are rolling ? 
and in the beautiful vale of Eidournion, in Merioneth — 



134 ANALYSIS AND CLASSIFICATION 

but listen to a fragment of a romance of this valley, 
which from memory I quote : — 

There was a proud and wealthy prince in Gwyneth, 
when the beautiful isle was under the rule of the Cymri. 
At his palace gate a voice was once heard echoing 
among the mountains these words : ^ Edivar a ddau^ — 
Repentance will come. The prince demanded ' When ?' 
and in the roUing thunder the voice was again heard^ 
' At the third generation.' 

Nothing daunted, the wicked lord lived on, commit- 
ting plunder and all evil excesses, and laughing to scorn 
the holy hymns in the churches. A son and heir was 
bom to him, and there was a gorgeous assemblage in 
the hall of beautiful ladies and high-born nobles, to 
celebrate the festival of his birth. 

It was midnight, when in the ear of an old harper, 
a shrill voice whispered, ' Edivar^ Edivar ;' and a little 
bird hovered over him_, and flew out of the palace in the 
pale moonshine : and the harper and the httle bird 
went together into the mountains. The bird flitted before 
him in the centre of the moon's disc, and warbled its 
mournful cry of ' Edivar so plaintively, that the old 
man thought of the shriek of his little child Gwenhwy- 
var, as she sunk beneath the waters of Glaslyn. 

On the top of the mountain he sank down with 
weariness, and the Httle bird was not with him ; all was 
silent, save the cataract and the sheep-bells on the 
mountain side. In alarm at the wild solitude around 
him, he turned towards the castle, but its lordly towers 
had vanished, and in the place of its woods and turrets 
there was a waste of rolling waters — ^with his lone harp 
floating on their surface. 

Ev. I am unwilUng to check your flighty fair Castaly, 
but my illustrations are not yet exhausted. 

The " Spectre of the Brocken" is a mere shadow of 
the spectator on a gigantic scale. This phantom, the 



OF SPECTRAL ILLUSION. 135 

'^ Schattenmann/^ according to vulgar tradition, haunts 
the lofty range of the Hartz mountains, in Hanover. 
It is usually observed when the sun's rays are thrown 
horizontally on thin fleecy clouds, or vapour of highly 
reflective power, assuming the shape of a gigantic shade 
on the cloud. 

The romantic region of the Hartz was the grand 
temple of Saxon idolatry, the very hot-bed of terrible 
shadows ; the first of May especially being the grand 
annual rendezvous of unearthly forms. Even now, it is 
affirmed, Woden, known in Brunswick as the Hunter 
of Hackelburgh, (whose sepulchre, an immense rough 
stone, is shown to the traveller,) is still influential in 
the Oden Wald and among the ruins of Rodenstein : 
even as in our own Lancashire, a dark gigantic horse- 
man rushes on a giant steed in stormy nights, over 
^^ Horrock Moor ;^^ indeed, a spot or tomb is still shown 
where he used to disappear. 

Thus are the "Spectres of the Brocken'' invested 
with supernatural dignity, in the minds of credulity 
and ignorance. And no wonder, for, although the dis- 
coverer of this gigantic illusion, Mr. Jordan, might 
convince the Germans of the nature of this shadow, 
how could the credulous believe, when they beheld a 
second figure , a faint refracted spectrum of the shadow, 
that it was any other than the shadow king of the 
Brocken himself, frowning defiance on intruders. 

And this reminds me of the confession of GafFarel, 
in his "Unheard of Curiosities'' of the seventeenth 
century ; in his quaint chapter on the '' readynge of the 
cloudes and whatever else is scene in the air, and of 
hieroglyphicks in the cloudes." 

Among other miraculous illusions, as recorded by 
Cardanus, " An angel once wafted on the cloudes above 
Millane, and great was the consternation at its appear- 
ance, until Pellicanus, a philosopher, made it plainly 



136 ANALYSIS AND CLASSIFICATION 

appear, that this angel was nothing else but the reflec- 
tion of an image of stone, that was on the top of the 
church of Saint Godart, which was represented in the 
thick cloudes as in a looking-glasse/^ 

While I was in South Wales, in 1836, I conversed 
with a labourer in the Cyfarthfa works at Merthyr 
Tydvil, an illiterate seer, who saw, three times appear- 
ing before him, an unsubstantial tram-road ; and on it 
a train drawn by a horse, and in this, the dead body of 
a man. Twice this shadow emerged from the earth, 
and on the third ascent he looked on it, and recognized 
the well-known face of a comrade. The man was horror 
struck, but his friend lived to laugh at him. 

When my friend, Mr. David Taylor, ascended the 
mountain that rises over Chamouni, on the opposite 
side of the valley to Mont Blanc, his magnified shadow 
was distinctly seen by him on the vapoury cloud that 
floated between these giant rocks. 

In February 1837, two gentlemen, on whom I con- 
fidently trust, were standing on Calton Hill while a 
murky cloud hung over Edinburgh. Above this veil 
Arthur's Seat peeped out like a rocky island beneath 
two white arches, like the lunar bows ; and on the cloud 
itself, each gentleman saw the shadow of his companion 
magnified to gigantic porportions. 

The aeronaut, among other glories of his ascent, may 
by chance be gratified by the shadow of his balloon on 
the face of a cumulus cloud; thus did the Duke of 
Brunswick, who ascended with Mrs. Graham, in August 
1836. And this is the analogous recital of Prince 
Puckler Muskau, in his "Tutti Frutti.'' 

" We dipped insensibly into the sea of clouds which 
enveloped us like a thick veil, and through which the 
sun appeared like the moon in Ossian. This illumina- 
tion produced a singular effect, and continued for some 
time, till the clouds separated, and we remained swim- 



OF SPECTRAL ILLUSION. 137 

ming: about beneath the once more clear azure heavens. 
Shortly after we beheld^ to our great astonishment^ a 
species of ^Fata Morgana/ seated upon an immense 
mountain of clouds the colossal picture of the balloon 
and ourselves surrounded by myriads of variegated 
rainbow tints. A full half hour the spectral reflected 
picture hovered constantly by our side. Each slender 
thread of the network appeared distended to the size 
of a ship^s cable, and we ourselves two tremendous 
giants enthroned on the clouds.^' 

The phantom, which rode side by side with Turpin, 
might be a mere reflected shadow in the mist ; indeed. 
Burton writes that " Vitellio hath such another instance 
of a familiar acquaintance of his, that after the want 
of three or four nights^ sleep, as he was riding by a 
river-side, saw another riding with him, and using all 
such gestures as he did, but when more light appeared, 
it vanishedJ'^ 

The principles of refraction are the sources of many 
an illusion, which is startling even to those who are 
aware of them. The sea, the vessels floating on its sur- 
face, the rocks and buildings on its shores, often appear 
elevated far beyond their usual position : things are 
thus presented to the eye which, in the direct course of 
the rays, would be completely out of sight ; and the 
praises bestowed on the Irish telescope may not have 
been a bull, although we are assured that we may see 
through it round the corner. 

Baron Humboldt, Mr. Huddart, Professor Vince, 
Captain Scoresby and others, will entertain you with 
these natural eccentricities, if you read the learned letter 
of Sir David Brewster, on " Natural Magic ;" and he will 
teach you how easy is the solution of all these marvels, on 
the principles of atmospheric reflection. Yet how many 
are there who are not contented with the light of our 
philosophy, though it may fall like a sunbeam on the 



138 ANALYSIS AND CLASSIFICATION 

mind. Like the recorder of the " Unheard-of Curiosi- 
ties/^ they, at one time, confess the optical illusion^ 
as when the Romans ^^ saw their navy in the clouds -" 
at another, as when Constantine professed to see the 
'^ Crosse shining most gloriously in the aire/^ marked 
with the motto, ^^ In hoc signo vinces,^^ — philosophy 
was silent, and they believed it might be divine. 

But a mind in its state of nature cannot know all this. 
If a savage looked on the two white horses cut on the 
chalk hiUs of Berkshire and of Wiltshire, on the white 
cross of the Saxons on the Bledlow Ridge in Bucking- 
hamshire, and on the white-leaf cross near Princes Ris- 
boro', — would he not deem them deities, or the work of 
a magician or a devil ? 

When the sailors of Lord Nelson saw the bloated 
corpse of the murdered Prince Caraccioli floating erect 
in the water directly towards their ship, can we wonder 
they should deem it a supernatural visitation ? 

When Franklin set his bells a ringing, by drawing 
down the electric fluid from the thunder-cloud, and 
when Columbus foretold to the hour the sun^s eclipse ; 
— can we wonder that the transatlantic Indians listened, 
as to one endued with preternatural knowledge, or that 
the other might be thought superhuman ? And when 
the king of Siam 'was assured that water could be con- 
gealed into ice, on which the sounding skate could glide, 
— can we wonder that he smiled in absolute disbelief of 
such a change, and called the tale a lie. 

Thus, when the peasants of Cardigan, who were not 
versed in Pontine architecture, looked on the bridge 
which the monks of Yspitty C'en Vaen had thrown across 
the torrent of the Monach, they could not believe it a 
work of human, but of infernal, hands, and called it the 
'' DeviPs Bridge.'' 

On my ascent of the Vann mountain in Brecon, there 
often came a mass of limestone rolling down the preci- 



OF SPECTRAL ILLUSION. 139 

pice. " Ah sure/^ said the old shepherd^ who was 
watching his fold on the mountain-side^ ^^ the fairies 
are at their gambols, master, for they sometimes do 
play at bowls with these chalk stones. ^^ Such was 
his explanation; but, on my gaining another ridge of 
the Brecon Beacon, I startled a whole herd of these 
fairies, who scudded off as fast as their legs could carry 
them, having first changed themselves into a flock of 
sheep. 

There was once a caravan journeying from Nubia to 
Cairo, which met the Savans attending on the expedi- 
tion of Napoleon into Egypt, among whom was Rigo, 
the painter. Struck with the deep character of expres- 
sion in the face of one of the Nubians, Rigo induced 
him, with gold, to sit for his portrait. The African sat 
calmly perusing its progress until the laying on of the 
colours, when, with a cry of terror, he rushed from the 
house, and, to his awe- struck companions, affirmed that 
his head and half his body had been cut off by an en- 
chanter. And this impression was not solitary, for an 
assemblage of the Nubians were equally terror-struck, 
and (somewhat like those monomaniacs who refuse to 
drink water which reflects their faces, beheving that 
they are swallowing their friends,) could never be dis- 
possessed of the notion that the picture was formed of 
the loppings and toppings of the human frame. 

We believe these influences the more, because we see 
that, even to some few men wiser than they, a leaning to 
superstition will warp a simple fact into a wonder ; and 
that mere sensitiveness of mind may work as great a 
fear. 

Suetonius tells us that Caligula and Augustus were 
the most abject cowards in a thunder-storm ; and the 
bishop of Langres D^Escaro fell in a fainting-fit when- 
ever an eclipse took place, — a weakness which at length 
proved his death. 



140 CLASSIFICATION OF SPECTRAL ILLUSION. 

There was an old house in Angouleme^ the " Chateau 
du Diable/^ on the spot where the sable fiend was wont 
to repair to enjoy his moonlight walk. The house was 
never finished^ for the devil^ jealous of this usurpation, 
like Michael Scott^s spirit, destroyed every night the 
walls which had been erected during the day. At 
length the men abandoned their work in despair. On 
the twenty-fifth night in May (1840), the ruined win- 
dows seemed on an instant in brilliant illumination, 
which struck the inhabitants of the little village of 
^^ Petit-Rochford ^' with wonder and dismay. Some 
dauntless heroes, however, sallied forth with weapons 
to storm the enchanted castle. In an upper room, 
lighted by eight blood-red wax candles, they discovered 
a man of a strange and melancholy aspect, tracing 
cabalistic figures on the sanded floor. He was con- 
veyed to the maire, and was proved to be a poor saw- 
yer, named Favreau, who, bound by a superstitious 
oath, self-administered, had thus created a sensation of 
terror throughout a whole community. 

In the records of the Harleian Miscellany, the cu- 
rious reader may discover one which might impress his 
mind with some terrific ideas of the natural history of 
the south of England in the seventeenth and eighteenth 
centuries. It is styled, ^^The True and Wonderful.'^ 
The portion of the MSS. to which I allude is the 
" Legend of the Serpent of St. Leonardos Forest.'^ This 
terrific legend of my own native town was a favourite 
of my boyish days ; it has moulted some feather of its 
once awful interest, and is now but the shadow of a 
memory ; and those who were once converts to its 
reality, now laugh the legend to scorn. 



ILLUSIONS OF ART. 



" If in Naples 
I should report this now, would they believe me?" 

Tempest. 



Ev. The science of chemistry has unfolded most of the 
secrets of material miracles, as Psychology those of the 
intellect and senses. 

Not that I would attempt thus to explain your won- 
ders of Palingenesy, Astrophel ; I will rather favour 
you with another batch, for I was once fond of unken- 
nelling these sly foxes. 

It is solemnly attested by the noble secretary of a 
Duke of Guise, that, in company with many scientific 
men, he saw the face of a person in his blood, which 
had been given by a bishop, for experiment, to La 
Pierre, the chemist, of Le Temple, near Paris. 

There is an old book of one Dr. Garmann, '^ De 
Miraculis Mortuorum,^^ and thus he writes : — " When 
human salt, extracted and depurated from the skull of 
a man, was placed in a water dish, there appeared next 
morning in the mass, figures of men fixed to a cross ;^' 
and ^^ when human skulls, on which mosses had vege- 
tated, were pounded, the family of the apothecary who 
pounded them were alarmed in the night by strange 
and terrific noises from the chamber.^^ 



142 ILLUSIONS OF ART. 

The body of the Cid, Ruy Diaz, as we read in Hey- 
wood^s " Hierarchie/^ sat in state at the altar of the 
cathedral at Toledo for ten years. A Jew one day at- 
tempted, in derision, to pull him by the beard ; but on 
the first touch, the Cid started up, and in high resent- 
ment scared the Israelite away by the unsheathing of 
his mighty sword. And Master Planche has brought 
you legends from the church of Maria Taferl, in Lower 
Austria, and other noted spots on the Danube. 

When Bernini^s bust of Charles I. was being con- 
veyed in a barge on the Thames, from a strange bird 
there descended a drop of blood on the bust, which 
could never be effaced. 

This is nothing but a fact in nature mystified, and 
(hke the growth of the Christmas flowering thorn of 
Glastonbury, from the walking-staff of Joseph of Ari- 
mathaea) is too glaring to be misconstrued. 

Other of these blood miracles are still more easy of 
solution. The blood spots from David Rizzio are shown 
to this day in Holyrood : and it was believed, that after 
the Irish massacre the blood of the victims then slain 
on Portnedown Bridge, has indelibly stained its bat- 
tlements. But these spots are nothing but the brown 
vegetative stains which geology has discovered on many 
fossils. 

Now listen to Father Gregory of Tours. " A thief 
was committing sacrilege at the tomb of Saint Helius, 
when the saint caught him by the skirt, and held him 
fast.'^ Probably his garment hitched on a nail. Another 
old man, while removing a stone from the grave of a 
saint, was in a moment struck blind, dumb, and deaf. 
Probably the mephitic gases exhaling from the tomb 
were the source of all this mystery. 

Then, as to the impositions of the priesthood. In 
Naples was the blood of Saint Januarius concealed in a 
phial, and on certain solemn days this so called blood 



ILLUSIONS OF ART. 143 

really became liquified ; but it was eiFected secretly^ by 
chemical means ; and I remember^ the archbishop who 
confessed the secret to the French general Championet^ 
was exiled by the Vatican. 

In the reign of Henry VIII. too (I quote from Hume)^ 
other bloody secrets of this sort were unfolded. ^^ At 
Hales^ in the county of Gloucester^ there had been 
shown during several ages the blood of Christ brought 
from Jerusalem ; and it is easy to imagine the veneration 
with which such a reHc was regarded. A miraculous 
circumstance also attended this relic. The sacred blood 
was not visible to any one in mortal sin^ even when set 
before him ; and^ till he had performed good works suf- 
ficient for his absolution, it would not deign to discover 
itself to him. At the dissolution of the monastery the 
whole contrivance was detected. Two of the monks, 
who were let into the secret, had taken the blood of a 
duck, which they renewed every week ; they put it in a 
vial, one side of which consisted of thin and transparent 
crystal, the other of thick and opaque. When any rich 
pilgrim arrived, they were sure to show him the dark 
side of the vial till masses and offerings had expiated 
his offences, and then, finding his money, or patience, 
or faith, nearly exhausted, they made him happy by 
turning the vial.^^ 

But there is no end to relics in Italy. Even two 
hundred years ago, John Evelyn makes out this cata- 
logue of those he saw in St. Mark^s, at Venice. 

^^ Divers heads of saints, inchased in gold ; a small 
ampulla, or glass, with our Saviour's blood; a great 
morsel of the real cross ; one of the nails ; a thorn ; a 
fragment of the column to which our Lord was bound 
when scourged ; a piece of St. Luke^s arm ; a rib of St. 
Stephen ; and a finger of Mary Magdalene ?' 

Among the more innocent illusions of art, I may re- 
mind you of concave and cylindrical mirrors and lenses. 



144 ILLUSIONS OF ART. 

the magic Ian thorn, "les ombres chinoises/'and the phan- 
tasmagoria of Cagliastro, by which daggers appear to 
strike the breast of the spectator, and images of objects 
in other rooms are thrown on the walls of that in which 
we are sitting. A mirror, thus accidentally placed, has 
afforded the evidence of murder within our own time. 

The duration of impressions on the eye, is another 
source of illusion. An image remains on the retina, I 
believe, about the eighth of a second ; as it departs^ if 
another object supplies its place in quick succession, the 
two images form, as it were, a union, and become 
blended. A knowledge of this law, in the ages of 
blind superstition, would have placed an overwhelming 
weapon in the hands of priestcraft ; in our day, it is the 
source of rational and innocent pleasure, by the inven- 
tion of optical toys. 

The whisking of an ignited stick produces a fiery 
circle — why ? Because from excessive rapidity the rays 
from one point remain impressed on the retina, until the 
revolution completes the circle. 

The Thaumatrope, or wonder-turner, and the Phan- 
tasmascope, are ingenious illustrations of this law of 
impression ; so also is the whirling machine, which so 
beautifully evinces the fact of white being compounded 
of all the prismatic colours, blended in certain propor- 
tions. The prismatic Iris is painted on a revolving 
circle ; by excessive rapidity of revolution, the colours 
are actually blended (as if mixed in a vessel) on the re- 
tina, and the surface of the machine is white to the 
eye. 

To these may be added the combustion of phos- 
phorus and other substances, in oxygen: red, green, 
and blue lights, which change the angel face of beauty 
into the visage of a demon; and the inhalation of 
noxious fumes and gases, creating altogether a new train 
of phantoms in the world of experimental magic, and 



ILLUSIONS OF ART. 145 

developing the formerly occult mysteries of the art of 
incantation. 

Chance may also involve a seeming mystery of very 
awful import. Some years ago the town of Reading 
was thus bewildered. On the loaves were seen the 
most mysterious signs. On one, a skeleton's head and 
cross-bones ; on another, the word ^^ resurgam ;" on 
another, a date of death was marked in deep impressions. 
The loaves of course were, by some mysterious influence, 
the vehicles of solemn warning from the Deity. 

The baker was churchwarden of St. Giles's ; his oven 
needed flooring, and, winking at the sacrilege, he stole 
the flat inscribed tombstones from the church-yard, and 
therewith floored his oven. From the inscriptions of 
these stones the loaves took their mystic impressions. 

In the reign of Edward the Martyr, during one of 
the synods assembled by Dunstan, the floor of the 
chamber suddenly gave way, involving the death of 
many of its members. It chanced that Dunstan had 
on that day warned the king not to attend the synod, 
and the only beam which did not give way was that on 
which his own chair was placed. This might be co- 
incidence merely, although I believe it was discovered 
that it was a concerted trick ; but the preservation of 
the king and the priest were, of course, attributed to 
special interference of the Deity. 

But there is one phenomenon in animal chemistry so 
rare, and indeed so wonderful, that there are few even 
among philosophers who can give it credence. This is 
" spontaneous combustion,'' the result of an evolution 
of phosphorated hydrogen from the blood ; the remote 
cause of which may be traced in some cases to the free 
use of alcohol. The records of these cases are very 
circumstantial, especially the two most remarkable — 
that of the Contessa Cornelia Bandi, of Cerena ; and of 
Don Bertholi, an ecclesiastic of Mount Valerius. But 



146 ILLUSIONS OF ART. 

I check my wanderings into this maze of mystery, in 
pity to your patience, fair ladies ; for I perceive Astrophel 
is again out of our sphere, and, enveloped in the cloud 
of his own mystic meditations, will not know that this 
spontaneous combustion is almost as wondrous a tale as 
his " Lady of the Ashes /^ 



ILLUSTRATION OF MYSTERIOUS SOUNDS. 



" The isle is full of noises, 
Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not. 
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments 
Will hum about mine ears: and sometimes voices." 

Tempest. 



Ev. S05 you see, the effect of novelty is never more 
powerfully displayed than by unusual impressions on 
the finer senses ; that appearances which the eye per- 
ceives, and which the mind cannot explain, become 
phantoms, involving some special motive of wonder or 
dismay. 

So eccentric impressions on the mechanism of the 
internal ear may be equally illusive. We have ghosts of 
the ear as well as of the eye. 

As ignorance has often warped the optical phenomena 
which certain atmospheric changes may produce, so pe- 
culiar and unusual sounds may be accounted for on 
equally erroneous principles, especially if they chance 
to resemble sounds which are the effects of daily or 
common causes. 

As the Hebrew bards hung their harps by the waters 
of Babylon, the Irish were wont, during their mourning 
for the death of a chief, to loosen their harp-strings, and 
hang them on the trees ; and while the wmd swept the 

l2 



14S ILLUSTRATION OF MYSTERIOUS SOUNDS. 

strings,, they ever believed that the harp itself sympa- 
thized in their sorrow. 

Thus^ when the lament^ or " uUaloo,^^ of these wild 
Milesians boomed along the mountain glens^ mingled 
with the coione^ or funeral song, and the poetical ca- 
dence blended with the winds, how easy to impart to it 
a more than human source; and thus the dismal coronach 
among the Scottish Highlands may be mystified into 
the ^^ boding scream of the Banshee/^ 

It is a classical question whether the rebel giant^ 
Typhoeus, was crushed by Jupiter beneath the island of 
Inarime, or Mount ^tna; but it might readily be be- 
lieved by the Sicilian, who had read this mythological 
tale, that the volcanic convulsions arose from the vain 
struggles for freedom of this monster, who sent forth 
flames from his mouth and eyes. 

Within a mountain of Stony Arabia, to the north of 
Tor, very strange noises are often heard as of the striking 
of an harmonic hammer, or the sound of a humming- 
top^ which completely infuriate the camels on the 
mountain when they hear it. The Arabs believe these 
sounds to proceed from a subterranean convent of 
monks, the priest of which, to assemble them to prayer, 
strikes with a hammer on the nakous, a metallic rod 
suspended in the air. M. Teetzen, who visited the 
spot, assures us that the cause of all this is the mere 
rolling of volumes of sand from the summit and sides of 
the mountain. 

In the last century, I remember there was a legend 
current in the west of England, of the '^'^Bucca,^^ a 
demon whose howling was heard amid the blast which 
swept along the shore. It was a sure foreboding of 
shipwreck. The prophecy was often but too fully veri- 
fied, but the voice of the demon was merely the premo- 
nitory gale from one certain quarter, which is always 
the avant-courier of a tempest. 



ILLUSTRATION OF MYSTERIOUS SOUNDS. 149 

I remember, when I was a child, the prevalent belief 
in Horsham, that, at a certain hour of the night, the 
ghost of Mrs. Hamel was heard groaning in her vault, 
beneath the great eastern window, and it required some 
self-possession to walk, at midnight, around this haunted 
tomb ; for few would believe that the noises were nothing 
more than the wind sweeping along the vaulted aisles of 
the church. 

Those very extraordinary impositions on the sense of 
hearing at Woodstock, in the truth of which, Astrophel, 
your faith was so firm, were resorted to to create terror, 
and effect a political purpose. In " the genuine History 
of the good Devil of Woodstock/^ written in 1649, we 
are told of the pealing of cannon, the barking of dogs, and 
neighing of horses, and other mysterious sounds, which 
certainly created the greatest wonder and anxiety, until 
" funny Joe Collins" explained and demonstrated all the 
mechanical process of this imposture. You will find 
also the account of these gems of marvellous history in 
Sinclair and Plott, and the chronicles of those days, 
which eclipse the haunted house of Athenodorus in 
Pliny. 

In the 16th century. Master Samuel Stryck discussed 
the whole question regarding these haunted houses, and 
warnings of ghosts, and belief in the reality of appari- 
tions, in his work published at Francofurt, " De Jure 
Spectrorum," and thus he runs up the question of 
damages : " If the house be haunted, the tenant might 
bring in a set-off against his rent, thus — * Deduct 
for spectres in bed and bed-room, and elsewhere, 
5/. 10^.'" 

The drama of the Drummer, by Addison, I believe 
was founded on the mystery of the " Demon of Ted- 
worth," which beat the drum in the house of Mr. Mom- 
pesson. This also was the source of extreme wonder, 
until the drummer was tried, and convicted, and Mr. 



150 ILLUSTRATION OF MYSTERIOUS SOUNDS. 

Mompesson confessed that the mystery was the effect 
of contrivance. 

The author of the Pandemonium, or Devils' Cloyster, 
garnished his book with tales of this nature. In 1667, 
when he slept in ^^ my Lady chamber/' in the house of 
a nobleman, he was waited on by a succession of spectral 
visitors ; the explanation of which Ferriar and Hibbert, 
and others, have wrought for you, if you deign to turn 
over the leaves of their natural philosophy. 

The impostures of the Stockwell miracles of 1772 
are recorded, with other curiosities, in the ^^ Every-day 
Book" of Hone, the skilful and unwearied collector of 
our ancient mysteries. 

The Cock-lane ghost is another instance of illusion 
in the ears of the credulous. Although Dr. Johnson, 
the Bishop of Salisbury, and other learned Thebans, 
sat in solemn judgment to develope its mystery, I be- 
lieve many were so in love with the marvellous, that 
they regretted the unravelling of the plot, and still be- 
lieved ; as Commodore Trunnion, in despite of evidence 
as to the fluttering in his chimney, swore that he knew 
a devil from a jackdaw, as weU as any man in the 
kingdom. 

AsTR. I wonder, Evelyn, at your veneration for the 
classics ; for are they not replete with stories, which, if 
true, (and I believe them so,) will undermine aU your 
philosophy ? When Pausanias writes of the ghosts at 
Marathon, of horses and .men who were heard rushing 
on to battle four hundred years after they were slain ; 
and Plutarch of the spectres and supernatural sounds 
in the baths at Chaeronea, the scene of bloodshed and 
murder ; — what may be their motives, but the record of 
acknowledged incidents ? 

Ev. The classics, if they might rise up and listen, 
would believe me, dear Astrophel, so clear and simple is 
the source of these illusions. 



ILLUSTRATION OF MYSTERIOUS SOUNDS. 151 

Of the credulity of the Romans I have spoken ; but 
even in minds not prone to superstition, deep mental 
impression, or constant dwelling on a subject of inte- 
rest, will effect this illusion of a sense. 

In Holy Island, near the ruins of the convent (in the 
dungeons of which romance has decided the fate of 
Constance Beverley), was a small fortress of invalid 
soldiers. One of them once conducted a visitor to a 
steep rock, under which, he said, there must be a pro- 
found cavern, as the sound of a bell was distinctly heard 
every night at twelve o^clock, deep in the bowels of the 
earth. The traveller soon discovered that the myste- 
rious sound had never been heard by the oldest inmates^ 
until the poem of '^ Marmion^' appeared, in which the 
condemnation and the death of Constance in the dun- 
geons of the cathedral are so forcibly described. This 
is, however, a metaphysical source of mystery. 

In volcanic regions, as in that of the Solfatara, near 
Naples, these strange and subterranean sounds are not 
unfrequently heard ; and in the rocky and caverned 
coasts of our own island also, where dwell the unlet- 
tered and the superstitious, by whose wild and roman- 
tic fancy these noises are readily magnified into the 
supernatural. 

Camden, in his " Britannia,^' informs us, — ^^ In a rock 
in the island of Barry, in Glamorganshire, there is a 
narrow chink, or cleft, to which if you put your ear you 
shall perceive all such sorts of noises as you may fancy 
smiths at work under ground, strokes of hammers, 
blowing of bellows, grinding of tools.'' At Worm's 
Head, in the peninsula of Gower in Glamorganshire, 
these sounds are, even now, often heard ; and it requires 
but a moderate stretch of imagination to create all this 
cyclopean imagery, when the sea is rolling in cavities 
under our feet, and the tone of its voice is magnified by 
confinement and repercussion. From some such source 



152 ILLUSTRATION OF MYSTERIOUS SOUNDS. 

pi^obably sprung the fable of '^ the Syrens/' two sohtary 
maidens, who, by their dulcet voices, so enchanted the 
navigators who sailed by their rocks, that they forgot 
home and the purpose of their voyage, and died of 
starvation. Ulysses, instructed by his mother Circe, 
broke the spell, and the ladies threw themselves into 
the sea with vexation. This fable, like many of the 
classic mysteries, may be thus topographically ex- 
plained. 

In the grand duchy of Baden, near Friburg, is a very 
curious example of an ^olian lyre, constructed, as the 
traditions of the mountains will have it, by the very 
genius loci himself. 

In a romantic chasm of these mountains, most melo- 
dious sounds are sometimes heard from the top of fir- 
trees overhanging a waterfall. The current of air, 
ascending and descending through the chasm, receives 
a counter impulse from an abrupt angle of the rock, 
and, acting on the tops of the string-like branches of 
the trees, produces the soft tones of the ^olian harp, 
the effect of which is much enhanced by the gushing 
of the waterfall. 

There may be in these natural sounds the source of 
many fables of the ancients : the moaning of the wind 
among the branches of a pine-grove might be the wail- 
ing of a hamadryad. 

Among the granite rocks on the Orinoco, Baron 
Humboldt heard the strangest subterranean sounds ; 
and at the palace of Carnac, some of Napoleon's savans 
heard noises exactly resembling the breaking of a string. 
It is curious that Pausanias applies exactly this expres- 
sion to the sounds of the Memnonian granite, — the 
colossal head of Meranon, which was believed to speak 
at sunrise. He writes, — '^ It emits sounds every morn- 
ing at sunrise, which can be compared only to that of 
the breaking of the string of a lyre." 



ILLUSTRATION OF MYSTERIOUS SOUNDS. 153 

Juvenal has the same notion^ but he has multipHed 
the sounds. 

The mystery of Memnon may be readily explained, 
by the temperature and density of the external air dif- 
fering from that within the crevices, and the effort of 
the current to promote an equilibrium ; yet these simple 
sounds were in course of time warped into articulate 
syllables, and at length obtained the dignity of an ora- 
cular voice. And in these illustrations, fair Castaly, 
you have the clue to all the mysteries of demonia and 
fairyland. 

To these natural illusions, let me add the triumphs 
of phonic mechanism and the peculiar faculty of the 
ventriloquist, the secrets of which the science of Sir 
David Brewster has so clearly developed. The won- 
drous heads of Memnon, and Orpheus, and ^sculapius, 
the machines of Albertus Magnus, and Sylvester, are 
now held but as curious specimens of art, and are 
indeed eclipsed by the speaking toys of Kratzenstein, 
and Kempelin, and Willis, and Savart, and the inge- 
nious instruments of Wheatstone. 

Of ventriloquism, it is not my purpose to speak ; but 
there is a wonder of our time in the person of young 
Richmond, which, with many distinguished physiolo- 
gists, I examined at the conversazione of Dr. E , in 

C Street. 

When Richmond sat himself to perform, we heard a 
subdued murmur in his throat for about half-a-minute, 
when suddenly a sound issued of the most exquisite 
and perfect melody, closely resembling, but exceeding 
in delicacy, the finest musical box. The mouth was 
widely open, and the performance was one of considera- 
ble effort. The sounds were a mystery to us at the 
time, for they were perfectly unique, and are yet not 
satisfactorily explained. It is decided, however, by 
some, that the upper opening of the windpipe may be 



154 ILLUSTRATION OF MYSTERIOUS SOUNDS. 

considered as a Jew's-harp^ or Molina, of very exqui- 
site power^ behmd the cavity of the mouth, instead of 
being placed between the teeth. 

AsTR. And thus concludes our lecture on special 
mechanics. 

Ev. I professed no more, Astrophel. It may be the 
privilege of the sacred poet to soar beyond the confines 
of our own planetary system : 

" Into the heav'n of heav'ns lie has presum'd. 
An earthly guest, and draAvn empyreal air." 

But the study of philosophy is nature and nature's 
known laws. If we lean, for one moment, to the credence 
of a modern miracle, there is an end to our philosophy. 
Revealed truth, and the immaterial nature of the mys- 
tical essence within us, we may not hghtly discourse on. 
The sacred histories of Holy Writ, and the miracles 
recorded in its pages — the hand-writing in the hall of 
Belshazzar, the budding of Aaron's rod, the standing 
still of the sun upon Gibeon, and, above aU, the mira- 
cles of the Redeemer, are of too holy a nature to be 
submitted to the test of philosophical speculation : they 
rest on the conviction of conscience and the heart; a 
proof far more sublime than may ever be elicited by the 
ingenuity of man, or the workings of his sovereign 
reason. 



FAIRY MYTHOLOGY. 



•* I'll give thee fanes to attend on thee." 

Midsummer Night's Dream. 



AsTR. Why so thoughtful^ fair Castaly ? I fear Eve- 
lyn has clipped your sylphid wings, and made a mortal 
of you. 

Cast. Your finger on your lips, Astrophel ; for the 
world, not a syllable of confession to Evelyn. 

I could think I heard the murmurs of a host of fairies 
streaming up to earth from elf-land, in fear of hbels on 
their own imperial sovereignty by this matter-of-fact 
scholar. 

AsTR. Why did we listen to his philosophy? why 
not still believe the volumes of our antique legends; 
that those which tell the influence of fairies and demons 
on man^s life, have their source in the real history of a 
little world of creatures more ethereal than ourselves ? 
Perhaps even the bright thoughts of a poef s fancy are 
not his own creation. 

Cast. We must hear no more, although Evelyn will 
still convert syrens into rocks and trees, and make a 
monster out of a mist or a thunder-cloud. The sun- 
light is sleeping on WyndchfF, and the breeze, creeping 
among the leaves, seems to me a symphony meet to 
conjure the phantoms of romantic creatures. Evelyn 



156 FAIRY MYTHOLOGY. 

is far away among the rocks ; let us steal the moment 
to revel in our dreams of faery. Even now, are we not 
in a realm of Peristan ? Yon mossy carpet of emerald 
velvet, strewed with pearls and gold, may be the pre- 
sence-chamber of Titania ; and fays are dancing within 
their ring, which the silvery beech o'ercanopies so sha- 
dily ; and the chaunting of their viralays, or green-songs, 
comes like the humming of a zephyr's wing flitting o'er 
the mouth of a lily. Ariel is lying asleep in her cinque- 
spotted cowshp bell, and the fays are feeding on their 
fairy-bread, made of the pollen of the jasmine ; and 
Oberon quaffs to his queen the drops that hang on the 
purple lip of the violet, or glitter in the honied bell of 
the hyacinth, or that purest crystal of the lotus, that 
brings life to the fainting Indian in the desert, or the 
liquid treasure of the nepenthe. 

We pray you, Astrophel, recount to us, now we are 
in the humour, the infancy of bright and dark spirits ; 
for you have dipped deep, I know, into the Samothra- 
cian mysteries. 

AsTR. Know, then, that the birth-time of mythology 
and romance was in the primeval ages of man. The 
ancient heathens believed in the legends of their deities, 
as we have credence in modern history and biography ; 
indeed, the romance of the moderns was with the an- 
cients truth. They had implicit faith in the presence 
of their gods, and that they might perchance meet them 
in the groves and hills, which were consecrated to their 
worship, and adorned with sculpture and idols in honour 
of the deities. Hence the profusion of their names and 
nature, recorded in the pages of the olden time, when 
the scribe traced his reed letter on the papyrus. 

From the climes of the sun came the orient tales of 
genie, and deeves, and peris ; and of naiad, and nereid, 
and dryad, and hamadryad, from Greece and Rome. 
In the Koran shone forth the promised houris of Ma- 



FAIRY MYTHOLOGY. 157 

liomet's paradise ; and its mysteries were echoed to us 
from, the lips and tables of pilgrims and crusaders, who 
had blazoned their red cross in the holy wars. Thus 
was romance cradled and bosomed in religion. 

From the legends of the East, spring the fairy ro- 
mances of our own days. The Peri of Persia was the 
denizen of Peristan, as the Ginn of Arabia was of Gin- 
nistan, and the Fairy of England of Fairyland ; and we 
have their synonyms in the Fata of Italy and the Duerga 
of northern Europe. 

These spirits of romance are almost innumerable; 
for thus saith the '^ Golden Legend :^' that '^ the air is 
full of sprites as the sonnebeams ben full of small motes, 
which is small dust or poudre.^' 

The alchemyst Paracelsus asserts that the elements 
were peopled with life ; the air with sylphs and sylvains, 
the water with ondines, the earth with gnomes, and the fire 
with salamanders. And Martin Luther coincides with 
these assertions ; nay, hath not Master Cross of Bristol 
illustrated the creed, and shown, by his galvanic power, 
an animated atom starting forth, as if by magic, from a 
flint, a seeming inorganic mass ? 

The sagas, or historical records of Scandinavia, of the 
Celtic, Scaldic, and Runic mythology, assert that the 
duergas or dwarfs, which are the Runic fairies, sprang 
from the worms in the body of the giant Ymor, slain, 
according to the Edda, by Odin and his brother ; and 
Spenser has left a very interesting genealogical record of 
the faery brood, in that romantic allegory of the Eliza- 
bethan age, the "Faery dueen.^^ Elf, the man fashioned 
and inspired by Prometheus, was wandering over the 
earth alone, and in the bosky groves of Adonis he dis- 
covered a lady of marvellous beauty — Fay. From this 
romantic pair sprang the mighty race of the fairies, and 
we have wondrous tales of the prowess of their heroic 
princes. Elfiline threw a golden wall round the city of 



158 FAIRY MYTHOLOGY. 

Cleopolis ; Elfine conquered the Gobbelines ; Elfant 
built Panthea^ of purest crystal ; Elfan slew the giant 
twins ; and Elfinor spanned the sea with a bridge of 
glass. 

Cast. Spenser^ I presume, borrowed his romance 
from Italy. We read that the rage and party spirit of 
the potent Guelphs and Ghibellines rankled even in 
their nurseries. The nurses were wont to frighten the 
children into obedience with these hated names, which, 
corrupted to the epithets of elf and goblin, were hence- 
forth applied to fairies and phantoms. 

AsTR. This story is itself a mere fiction. Ere the 
period of these feuds of party, the term Elfen (and 
Dance identifies this with the Teutonic Helfen,) was a 
common epithet of the Saxon spirits : Weld-elfen were 
their dryads ; Zeld-elfen their field-fairies, &c. 

The American Indians to this day have faith in the 
presidencies of spirits over those lakes, trees, and moun- 
tains, and even fishes, birds, and beasts, which excel 
in magnitude. The orient Indian, too, at this hour, 
peoples the forests with his gods; and peacocks, and 
squirrels, and other wild creatures, are thus profanely 
deified. 

The legends of later days have quaintly blended the 
classic with the fairy mythology. Hassenet tells us 
that Mercurius was called the Prince of Fairies; and 
Chaucer sings of Pluto, the King of Fayrie ; and, in 
the romance of the Nine Champions, Proserpine sits 
crowned among the fairies. The great zoologist, Phny, 
writes in his Natural History, that "you often en- 
counter fairies that vanish away like phantasies. ^^ And 
Baxter believed that '' fairies and goblins might be as 
common in the air, as fishes in the sea.^^ 

As the Peri could not enter Paradise in consequence 
of the errors of her ^' recreant race,^^ so the elves could 
not enjoy eternity without marrying a Christian ; and 



FAIRY MYTHOLOGY. 159 

on this plea they came up to the daughters of men. 
And we read, in the tenets of the Cabala, that, by these 
earthly weddings, they could enjoy the privileges and 
happiness of each other's nature. But these unnatural 
unions were not always happy. There is, in our old 
chronicles, a tradition of a marriage between one of the 
counts of Anjou and a fair demonia, which entailed 
misery and commission of crime on the noble house of 
Plantagenet. 

Now there are appointed times when the influence of 
the spirit fades for a season. It was the moment of the 
eclipse, among the American Indians and the African 
blacks; in Ireland, it is the feast of the Beltane; in 
Scotland, this immunity came over the mortal life on 
Hogmany, or New-year's Eve, and during the general 
assemblies of these mystic spirits of the world. 

In Britain, it was on the eve of the first of May, the 
second of November, and on All Souls' Day. At these 
times, indeed, they might be induced to divulge the 
secrets of their mysterious freemasonry. 

In Germany, on May-day, when the unearthly ren- 
dezvous was on the dark mountain of the Hartz, and 
on Halloween, in Caledonia, even the secrets of time 
and futurity were unfolded by the spirits to a mortal, 
if one were found so bold as to repair on these festivals 
to their unhallowed haunts. 

If a mortal enters the secret abodes of the Daoine 
Shi, in Scotland, and anoints his eyes with their 
charmed ointment, the gift of seeing that which is to 
all others invisible is imparted ; but this must be kept 
secret, for the Men of Peace will blind the second- 
sighted eye, if once they are recognized on earth by a 
mortal. 

In the gloomy forests of Germany rose the legends 
of Kobolds, and Umbriels, and Wehrivolves, the Holts 
Konig, the Waldebach^ the Reibe7'zahl, and the Schattefi- 

6 



160 FAIRY MYTHOLOGY. 

man^ the Hudekin, the Erl Konig, and the beautiful 
naiad^ the Nixa, The devil himself was believed to be 
a gnome king ; for v^^hen the Elector of Saxony offered 
Martin Luther the profit of a mine, he refused it, " lest 
by accepting it he should tempt the devil, who is lord 
of those subterraneous treasures, to tempt him.'' 

Then we have the Putseet, or Puck of the Samogitae, 
on the Baltic ; the Biergen Trold, or Show, of Iceland ; 
and those mermaids which gambol around the Feroe 
Islands. We read in the Danske Folksaga, that these 
^^merrows" cast their skins like the boa, and in that con- 
dition are changed into human beings, till their scales 
are restored to them. And the Shetlanders implicitly 
believe that awful storms instantly arise on the murder 
of one of these sea-maids. 

There was the Norse goddess, Freya, which, like the 
Dragon of Wantley, and the Caliban of the " still vexed 
Bermoothes,^^ blasted the fair face of nature, and far 
eclipsed the giant-serpent off Cape Saint Anne, or the 
kraken of Norway ; and even that monstrous sea-snake, 
the jormungandz (so conspicuous among the wild ro- 
mances of the Edda), whose coils entwined the globe. 
Thor angled for this snake with a builds head, but it 
was not to be caught, being reserved for some splendid 
achievement in the grand conflict which is to herald the 
Ragnarockr, — the twilight of the gods. 

Among the mountains of our own island we have a 
profuse legion. In Wales, the Tylwth Tag and the 
Pooka; and many a hollow in the mountain where 
these strange animals resort, is called Civm Pooka ; and 
the wondrous cavern of the Melte, in Breconshire, was 
believed to be haunted by this little pony. 

In Ireland, they have a Merrow, the Runic sea, or 
oigh-maid; the Banshee, or fairy prophet; the Fear- 
Dearg, the Irish Puck ; the Clurricane, a sottish 
pigmy ; and the Pooke, the wild pony. 



FAIRY MYTHOLOGY. l6l 

Cast. These must have been a prolific as well as a 
wandering brood, for I also have seen many caverns in 
the rocky districts, called Poola Phouka, in which these 
mischievous little creatures concealed themselves. 

AsTR. In Man there is a hill called the ^^ Fairy Hill," 
a tumulus of the Danes, which is thought to be a noc- 
turnal revel-place for the Man fairies which preside over 
their fisheries. 

Scotland was a fertile mother of monsters : the Ou- 
risks or Uriskin, the goblin-satyrs or shaggy men ; the 
Brownies; the Kelpies, or river-demons ; the Bargheists; 
the Red-cap; the Daoine Shi, or Men of Peace; the 
Glaslic, or noontide hag, which haunted the district of 
Knoidart ; and the Lham-Dearg, or red-hand, in the 
forests of Glenmore, and Rothiemurchus ; the Bodach- 
Glas ; and the Pixies, or small grey men. 

Cast. There is an islet among the Scottish Hebrides, 
which is called the Isle of Pigmies ; and I remember a 
chapel there, in which very minute human bones were 
some time ago discovered. Think you, Astrophel, that 
these were the skeletons of pixies ? 

AsTR. I cannot think the notion irrational ; there 
are dwarfs and giants even in our days. The Bosgis-men 
of the Cape, and the Patagonians of South America, 
prove the existence of beings of another stature ; and 
perchance of another nature, in days long agone. The 
Laplander and Bushman of the Cape are little more 
than three feet high ; and that there were giants too, is 
proved by the fossil bones which have been found in the 
strata of our earth. 

Cast. Then we have really dwindled in our growth, 
and Adam was really a hundred and twenty-three feet 
nine inches high, and Eve a hundred and eighteen feet 
nine inches and three quarters, as we are solemnly in- 
formed by our profane chronicles ? Nay, even the story- 
may be true of the Pict, who bit off the end of the 

M 



162 FAIRY MYTHOLOGY. 

mattock^ with which some slave of science was opening 
his coffin^ and thundered forth this exclamation : "^ I 
see the degeneracy of your race by the smallness of 
your little finger/^ 

Ida. If Evelyn were here, he would ask why we have 
no skeletons of giants as of lizards in our secondary 
rocks ; and he would tell this learned Theban, Castaly, 
that Cuvier decided these fossils, which seemed to be 
the debris of a giant race, to be the bones of elephants. 
The legends of Athenaeus are probably a fable, and the 
fossils of the pigmies were, I dare say, the petrified 
skeletons of '^ span-long, wee unchristenM bairns.^' 

Your allusion to the brownies, reminds me of the 
monstrous errors which have crept into our legends 
from the mingling of two stories, or the warping of 
plain facts in natural history. And indeed I interrupt 
you to recount, in proof of this, some fragments from 
" Surtees^ Durham.'^ 

^^ Every castle, tower, or manor-house has its visionary 
inhabitants. ^ The Cauld Lad of Hilton' belongs to a 
very common and numerous class, the brownie or do- 
mestic spirit, and seems to have possessed no very dis- 
tinctive attributes. He was seldom seen, but was heard 
nightly by the servants who slept in the great hall. If 
the kitchen had been left in perfect order, they heard 
him amusing himself by breaking plates and dishes, 
hurling the pewter in all directions, and throwing every 
thing into confusion. If, on the contrary, the apart- 
ment had been left in disarray, (a practice which the ser- 
vants found it most prudent to adopt,) the indefatigable 
goblin arranged every thing with the greatest precision. 
This poor esprit folet, whose pranks were at all times 
perfectly harmless, was at length banished from his 
haunts by the usual expedient of presenting him with a 
suit of clothes. A green cloak and hood were laid be- 
fore the kitchen fire, and the domestics sat up watching 



FAIRY MYTHOLOGY. 163 

at a prudent distance. At twelve o'clock the spirit glided 
gently in^ stood by the glowing embers, and surveyed 
the garments provided for him very attentively, tried 
them on, and seemed delighted with his appearance, 
frisking about for some time, and cutting several sum- 
mersets and gambados, till on hearing the first cock, he 
twitched his mantle tight about him and disappeared 
with the usual valediction : 

" ' Here's a cloak, and here's a hood. 

The cauld lad of Hilton will do no more good.' " 

The genuine Brownie, however, is supposed to be, 
ab origine, an unembodied spirit ; but the boy of Hilton 
has, with an admixture of English superstition, been 
identified with the apparition of an unfortunate domestic, 
whom one of the old chiefs of Hilton slew at some very 
distant period, in a moment of wrath or intemperance. 
The baron had, it seems, on an important occasion, 
ordered his horse, which was not brought out so soon 
as he expected. He went to the stable, found the boy 
loitering, and seizing a hay-fork, struck him, though 
not intentionally, a mortal blow. The story adds, that 
he covered his victim with straw till night, and then 
threw him into a pond, where the skeleton of a boy was 
(in confirmation of the tale) discovered in the last 
baron^s time. 

I am by no means clear that the story may not have 
its foundation in the fact recorded in the following in- 
quest : 

^^ Coram Johannem King, coron., Wardae de Chestrae, 

apud Hilton, 3 Jul. 7 Jac. 1609.'' 

(And here follows a report in Latin.) 

Nevertheless, I strongly suspect that the unhousel'd 
spirit of Roger Skelton, whom in the hay-field the good 
Hilton ghosted, took the liberty of playing a few of 
those pranks which are said by writers of grave authority 

M 2 



164 FAIRY MYTHOLOGY. 

to be the peculiar privilege of those spirits only who are 
shouldered untimely by violence from their mortal 
tenements. 

" Ling'ring in anguish o'er his mangled clay, 
The melancholy shadow turn'd away, 
And follow'd through the twilight grey." 

A free pardon for the above manslaughter appears on 
the rolls of Bishop James, dated 6th September, 1609.^^ 

I will only add that, among the Harleian MSS., the 
same legend is told wdth some variations, in which this 
'' cauld lad^' is termed the ''Pale Boy of Hilton.'' 

This confusion of our mythology is as conclusive of 
the fiction of all the mysterious legends of the moderns, 
as the jumble which the classic poets have made of their 
monsters. If we read Lempriere, the genealogy of the 
classic monster is involved in a maze of impious con- 
fusion ; and the mythology of Chimera, and Echidna, 
and Typhon, Geryon, and Cerberus, and the Hydra and 
Bellerophon, and Ortha and the Bphynx, and the Nemcean 
Lion, and the Minotaur, and the demoniac records of 
their origin, it is almost profanation even to reflect on. 

But when Martianus Capella tells us that devils 
have aerial bodies, that they live and die, and yet, 
if cut asunder, soon re-unite ; and when Bodine as- 
serts, in his "Solution of Natural Theology," that 
spirits and angels are globular, as being of the most 
perfect shape, I confess I feel more disposed to smile at 
their imposture than to frown, were it not for their 
utter worthlessness. 

Yet all the allegories which adorn our legends are 
not so remote from truth or nature. The vampires are 
said to have gloated over the sacrifices of human life, 
while the gouls and afrits, the hyenas in human shape, 
not only fed on dead carcases, but, by a special trans- 
migration, took possession of a corpse. On this fable is 



FAIRY MYTHOLOGY. 165 

founded the monstrous legend of ^^ Assuet and Ajut.^' 
I confess it monstrous ; but indeed there is little ex- 
aggeration even in these tales of horror^ if we may- 
believe, for once, Master Edmund Spenser, in that part 
of his record of the rebellion of Desmond, in Ireland, 
which treats of the Munster massacre : — ^^ Out of every 
corner of the woodes and glennes, they came creeping 
forth upon their handes, for their legges could not bear 
them ; they looked like anatomies of death ; they spake 
like ghostes, crying out of their graves : they eat the 
dead carrions — happy were they could they find them — 
yea, and one another soon after, insomuch as the very- 
carcases they spared hot to scrape out of their graves/^ 
That episode also, in the " Inferno^^ of Dante, in which 
Count Ugolino wears out days and nights in gnawing 
the skull of an enemy, may well seem a fiction ; but 
even this hellish repast is but a prototype of the savage 
rage for scalping and cannibalism among the Indian 
hordes of America. 



DEMONOLOGY. 

" Be thy intents wicked or charitable, 
Thou com'st in such a questiouable shape — " 

Hamlet. 

AsTR. Now from the holy records^ from the creed of 
the Magus Zoroaster, from the Greek, and Roman, and 
other legends, how clear is the influence of ethereal 
beings, of angels and demons, on man^s life ; and of the 
imparted power of exorcism ! In allusion to this divine 
gift to Solomon, Josephus has the following story : — 
'^ God also enabled him to learn that skill which expels 
demons, which is a science useful and sanative to men. 
And this method is of great force unto this day, for I 
have seen a certain man of my own country, whose 
name was Eleazer, releasing people that were demoniacal 
in the presence of Vespasian, and his sons, and his cap- 
tains, and the whole multitude of his soldiers. The 
manner of the cure was this. He put a ring, that had a 
root of one of those sorts mentioned by Solomon, to the 
nostrils of the demoniac, after which he drew out the 
demon through his nostrils ; and when the man fell 
down immediately, he adjured him to return into him 
no more, making still mention of Solomon, and reciting 
the incantations which he composed. And when Elea- 
zer would persuade and demonstrate to the spectators 



DEMONOLOGY. 167 

that he had such a power, he set a httle way off a cup 
or bason full of water, and commanded the demon, as 
he went out of the man, to overturn it, and thereby to 
let the spectators know that he had left the man," 

The gods of the Greeks and the Latins, the lares 
and lemures, or hearth-spirits, the pagan and the Chris- 
tian elves, were ever held as delegated agents of the 
Deity, who worked, not by a fiat, but by an instrument. 
Such were the Cemies of the American islanders, and 
the Kitchi and Matchi Manitou of the Indians ; and, if 
we consult Father Borri, we shall learn that in Cochin 
China Lucifer himself promenaded the streets in human 
shape. 

Psellus records six kinds of devils ; and the arrange- 
ments of Agrippa, and other theologians, enumerate 
nine sorts of evil spirits, as you may read in one of old 
Burton's eccentric chapters. 

The mythology of the Baghvat Geeta, the sacred re- 
cord of the Hindoo theists, is based on the notion of 
good and evil spirits, the emblems of virtue and of vice 
under the will and power of Brahma. Indeed, the 
Hindoo mythology is but that of the classic in other 
words. Agnee, the god of fire, Varoon, the god of the 
ocean, Vayoo, the god of the wind, and Cama, the god 
of love, are but other names for Jupiter, and Neptune, 
and CEolus, and Cupid. 

The creed of Zoroaster asserts a perpetual conflict 
between the good and evil deity, the types of religious 
knowledge and ignorance. The southern Asiatics are 
people of good principle, and the northern nations peo- 
ple of evil principle. And why may not the Persian 
thus coincide with Bacon himself, who in his book " De 
Dignitate,'' confesses his belief in good and bad spirits, 
in charms, and prophecies, and the varieties of natural 
magic. Or is it inconsistent that the Hindoos should 
incarnate the malignant disease, small pox, in the per- 

6 



168 DEMONOLOGY. 

son of the deity Mah-ry-wnma, of whose lethal influence 
they hved in abject fear. 

Ida. In the holy records^ it is true^ we read that 
demons were even permitted to enter the bodies of other 
beings, and that when they had so estabhshed a posses- 
sion, by divine command they went out of those pos- 
sessed, as, for sacred example, into the herd of the 
Gadarenes ; that they were also commissioned, for the 
fulfilment of the inscrutable will of the Creator, to try 
the endurance of Job, and even to tempt the divinity of 
the S ardour, and that they were the immediate cause of 
madness and other sad afflictions. 

I do fear, Astrophel, that there is much danger, now, in 
this embodying of a demon ; and that we too often model 
our modem principles, on the proud presumption of 
still possessing that miraculous power of exorcism. 
With sorrow may I confess, that the holy truths of 
Scriptui'e, so cleai'ly evincing a special purpose, should 
have been ever warped, by worse than inquisitorial 
bigotry, into the motive for cruelties unparalleled. From 
the Scripture histories of demoniac possession have 
arisen the coercion and cruelties, which once marked 
with an indelible stain the records of our own mad- 
houses ; where chains and lashes, inflicted by the de- 
mons of science, have didven the moody wretch into a 
raving maniac, when a hght hand and a smile would 
have brought back the angel reason to the mind. 

Impersonation is the grand source of many similar 
errors. The demon, which, since the light of the Chris- 
tian dispensation has brooded in man^s heart and mind, 
is his own base passion, which incites him to shut his 
eyes to this holy light, and follow deeds of evil ; to be a 
slavish worshipper in the hall of Arimanes. With this 
profane homage, we court our evil passions, to betray and 
destroy the soul. And this is the interpretation of an 
allegory in the profane legends of the Talmud — that Lilis, 



DEMONOLOGY. 169 

the wife of Adam^ ere the creation ofEve^ brought forth 
none but demons ; the origin^ indeed^ of moral evil. 

There are many popular stories which bear a moral 
to this end : that the evil spirit is powerless over the 
hearty if it be not encouraged and invited ; and, alas ! 
the alluring masque under which evil looks on us, is 
often but too certain to charm us to its influence, or we 
are too thoughtless to beware the danger. Thus the 
disguised enchanter enters into the palace of the Sultan 
Mesnar, (in "The Tales of the Genii,^^) and thus the 
gentle Christabel of Coleridge leads the false Geraldine 
over that threshold, which she could not cross without 
the help of confiding and unsuspecting innocence. 

Cast. The crones of retired villages have not yet 
yielded their belief in fairy influence. 

Among the low Irish it is believed that (as the nymph- 
olepts of old who had looked upon Pan, sealed an early 
doom), the paralytic is fairy-struck ; and superstition 
has inspired them with a belief in the influence of the 
evil eye or glamourie, especially in the vicinity of Black- 
water. 

I remember, when our wanderings among the Wicklow 
mountains led us through the dark glen of the Dargle, 
the implicit faith of the Irish women in the charm of 
amulets and tahsmans. Like the fabled glance of the 
basiUsk, the evil eye is bestowed on some unhappy 
beings from their very birth ; nay, the spell infests the 
cabin in which they herd. To avert this fatal influence 
from the children, a charm is suspended around their 
necks, which when blessed by the priest is called a 
" gospel.^^ 

When a happy or evil star shines at a birth, it is the 
eye of a cherub or a demon, smihng or frowning on the 
destiny of the babe ; and when happiness or misery 
predominates in a life, it is a minister of good or ill that 
blesses or inflicts. There is one beautiful scrap of this 



170 DEMONOLOGY. 

mythology — the thrill of holy joy which the Irish mo- 
ther feels when her infant smiles in its sleep ; for she 
knows it is a holy angel whispering in its ear. 

In our own island they are often celebrated as the 
very pinks of hospitality. 

In Cornish history^ we read how Anne Jeffries was 
fed for six months by the small green people. And in 
yonder forest of Dean, (as writeth Gervase, the Imperial 
Chancellor, in his "Otia Imperialia/^) "In a grovy 
lawn there is a little mount, rising in a point to the 
height of a man, on which knights and other hunters 
are used to ascend, when fatigued with heat and thirst, 
to seek some relief for their wants. The nature of the 
place and of the business is, however, such, that who- 
ever ascends the mount must leave his companions and 
go quite alone. When alone, he was to say, as if speak- 
ing to some other person, ' I thirst,^ and immediately 
there would appear a cup-bearer in an elegant dress, 
with a cheerful countenance, bearing in his outstretched 
hand a large horn, adorned with gold and gems, as was 
the custom among the most ancient English. In the 
cup, nectar of an unknown but most delicious flavour 
was presented ; and when it was drunk, all heat and 
weariness fled from the glowing body, so that one 
would be thought ready to undertake toil, instead of 
having toiled. Moreover, when the nectar was taken, 
the servant presented a towel to the drinker to wipe 
his mouth with, and then, having performed his office, 
he waited neither for recompense for his services, nor 
for questions, nor inquiry .^^ 

This frequent and daily action had, for a very long 
period, of old times taken place among the ancient peo- 
ple, till one day a knight of that city, when out hunt- 
ing, went thither, and having called for drink, and 
gotten the horn, did not, as was the custom, and as in 
good manners he should have done, return it to the 



DEMONOLOGY. 171 

cup-bearer, but kept it for his own use. But the illus- 
trious Earl of Gloucester, when he learned the truth of 
the matter, condemned the robber to death, and pre- 
sented the horn to the most excellent king, Henry the 
Elder ; lest he should be thought to have approved of 
such wickedness, if he had added the rapine of another 
to the store of his private property. 

But the fairies might rue their kindness, if you 
frowned so darkly on them, Astrophel. They would fear 
the influence of your spells, for there is blight and mil- 
dew in that glance. At the banquet of the fairies, if 
the eye of the seer but look on them, the romance is 
instantly at an end : the nymphs of beauty are changed 
into withered carles and crones, and the splendour of 
Elfin-land is turned to dust and ashes. 

Ida. As a set-off against the virtues of your fairies, 
Castaly, you forget there was a propensity to mischief. 
They were rather fond, like the Daoine Shi, of stealing 
unchristened babes, and of chopping and changing these 
innocents, thence called changelings. On this fable your 
own Shakspere has wrought the quarrel of Oberon and 
Titania : — 

" A lovely boy, stol'n from an Indian king ; 
She never had so sweet a changeling." 

I am willing, dearest, that the poet shall make a good 
market of these fictions; but superstitious ignorance 
may make a sad and cruel work of it, even among your 
romantic Irish peasantry. 

A few months since, on the demesne of Heywood 
(as we learn from the "Tipperary Constitution^^), the 
death of a child, six years old, was accomplished with a 
wantonness of purpose almost incredible. Little Ma- 
hony was afflicted with spinal disease, and, like many 
other deformed children, possessed the gift, — in this 
case the fatal gift, — of acute intellect. For this quality, 
it was decided that he was not the son of his reputed 



172 DEMONOLOGY. 

father^ but a fairy changeling. After a solemn convo- 
cation^ it was decreed that the elfin should be scared 
away : and the mode of effecting this was, by holding 
the child on a hot shovel, and then pumping cold water 
on his head ! This had the effect of extorting a confes- 
sion of his imposture, and a promise to send back the 
real Johnny Mahony ; but ere he could return to elf- 
land and perform this promise, he died. But who is he 
sitting at your ear, Castaly ? 

Cast. Sir, is this fair? You have played the eaves- 
dropper. Why come you here ? 

Ev. To counsel you to silence on these mysteries, 
sweetest Castaly : remember the fate of Master Kirke, 
of Aberfoyle, for his dabbling in elfin matters, which 
you may read in Sir Walter's ^^ Demonology.'' Yet I 
will not flout all your fayrie legends ; there may be 
innocent illusions, that carry with them somewhat of 
morality and retribution, — seeing that there are good 
and bad spirits, which reward and punish mortaUty. 
But, in sooth, I never think of fairyland, without re- 
membering that good Sir Walter, as sheriff of Selkirk- 
shire, once took the deposition of a shepherd, who 
affirmed that he saw the good neighbours sitting under 
a hill- side : when, lo ! it was proved that these were the 
puppets of a showman, stolen and left there by some 
Scotch mechanics. And, better stiU, the story of the 
Mermaid of Caithness, as related to Sir Humphrey 
Davy, and recorded in his " Salmonia ;'' — the mermaids, 
as I take it, being nearly allied to the Nereid, or Sea- 
fairy, and the reality of one about as true as that of the 
other. 

Nature is wild and beautiful enough, without these 
false creations. Read her truth, fair lady, and leave the 
fables to the fairies. There is not a ripple or a stone 
that is not replete with scientific interest, and yields not 
a study that both ennobles and delights the mind. 



POETRY OF NATURE. 173 

The doublings, or horse-shoes, of this Wye, or Vaga 
as the Romans named it, within its circle of rocks, so 
exquisitely fringed with green and purple lichens (like 
the Danube, round the castle of Hayenbach in the 
gloomy gorge of Schlagen, or the Crook of Lune, in 
Westmoreland, and many others), illustrate at once the 
nature of the stratification on the earth's surface ; even 
the varied tints of these mountain streams may read the 
student a practic lesson in geology. 

From the lime-rock springs the azure-blue, as the 
Glaslyn stream, at Beddgelert, the Rhone, and the 
Traun in Styria ; from the chalk ripples the grey water 
of the Dee and the Arve ; from the clay hills the stream 
comes down yellow, as " the Derwent's amber wave ;'' 
and where the peat-mosses abound, especially in the 
autumnal flood, the stream is of a rich and dark sienna 
brown, as the Conway, and the Mawddach, in Merion- 
eth ; or even of transparent black, as the Elain, which 
flows down through the white schist rocks of Cardigan- 
shire. 

Cast. And is there wisdom, Evelyn, in thus 

" Flying from Nature to study her laws, 

And dulling delight by exploring the cause V 

I do fear that this analytic study of nature destroys the 
romance of life which flings around us its rainbow 
beauty. 

Oh, for those halcyon days of infancy, when every 
thought was a promise ; when hope, the dream of wak- 
ing men, was lost in its fulfilment ; and even fear itself 
was a thrill of romance ! 

Behold yon silver moon ! it is, to the poefs eye, an 
orb of unsullied beauty, and the planets and their satel- 
lites glitter like diamond studs in the firmament. Yet 
shift but the lens of the star-gazer, and lo ! dark and 
murky spots instantly shadow o'er its purity ; nay, have 



174 POETRY OF NATURE. 

I not read that one deep astronomer, Fraiienhofer, has 
discovered mountains and cities ; and another, Sir John 
Herschell, the laying down of rail-roads in the moon ? 
So the optics of Gulliver magnified the court beauties 
of Brobdignag into monsters, and the aubui'n tresses of 
a maid of honour into a coil of dusty ropes ! 

Ev. x\ truce, fair Castaly. If science discovers defects, 
does it not unfold new beauties, a new world of ani- 
mated atoms, endowed with faculties and passions as 
influential as oui' own ? Nay, science has thrown even 
a poetry around the blue mould of a cheese-crust ; and 
in the bloom of the peach the microscope has shown 
forth a treasury of flowers, and gigantic forests, in the 
depths of which the roving animalcule finds as secure 
an ambush as the lion and the tiger within the gloomy 
jungles of Hindostan. In a drop of liquid crystal the 
water-wolf chases his wounded victim, till it is changed 
to crimson v^ith its blood. Ehrenberg has seen monads 
in fluid the 24,000th part of an inch in size ; and in one 
drop of water 500,000,000 creatures — the population of 
the globe ! I hope, Castaly, you will not, like the Brah- 
min, break your microscope, because it unfolds to you 
these wonders of the water. 

Then, by the power of the telescope, we roam into 
other systems — 

" World beyond world in infinite extent, 
Profusely scattered o'er the blue expanse," 

and orbs so remote as to reduce to a mere span 
the distance between us and the Georgium Sidus ; and 
revel in all the gorgeous splendour of rings, and moons, 
and nebulae, the poetry of heaven. 

Is there not an exquisite romance in the closing of 
the barometrical blossoms ; of the white convolvulus, 
and the anagallis or scarlet pimpernel ; of the sun-flower, 
and the leaves of the Dioncea and mimosa ? 

Is there not poetry in the delicate nautilus, with its 



POETRY OF NATURE. 175 

arms dropped for oars ; in the velella and purple physalia 
expanding their membranous sails ; and the beautiful 
fish-lizard, the Proteus of transparent alabaster, found 
in the wondrous cavern of Maddalena, among the Sty- 
rian mountains; and even in the Staladytes of Anti- 
paros, as glittering as the gems and crystal pillars of 
Aladdin^s palace? Are not these more beautiful be- 
cause they are true, and better to be read than all the 
impersonations of mythology, or that voluptuous ro- 
mance which would endow a flower with the fervour of 
sense and passion ? 

Ida. I have ever wondered that a scholar, like Dar- 
win, should have so wasted time with his ^^ Loves of the 
Plants.^^ For the study of nature and the discoveries 
of science are ever vain, if they lift not the heart in 
adoration. The insect, that fans the sunbeam with its 
golden wing, or even the flower that opes its dewy eyes 
to the light, are unconscious worshippers of the Divine 
Being. 

The Epicurean, who weeps for a decaying body, but 
mourns not for a lost soul, will enjoy these beauties of 
nature with a heart faithful to his creed, that pleasure is 
the only good ; but the Christian feels that, when he 
chips a stone, or culls a flower, he touches that which 
comes fresh from the hand of its Creator. 

How full is nature, too, of mute instruction ! the 
simplest incident is a lesson, if we will but learn it. You 
see that fading blossom floating on the surface of the 
stream. That inanimate type of decaying beauty shows, 
to the reflective mind, that even in the summer of life 
the flower of existence will lose its youthful lustre, and 
float down the stream of time into the depths of eternity. 

But tell me, Evelyn, may not the influence of that 
science that magnifies the lights of heaven (created to 
rule day and night) into habitable worlds, weaken the in- 
fluence of faith in holy writ ? 



176 POETRY OF NATURE. 

May we not fear that, like the Promethean Pre- 
adamites of Shelley, the Cain of Byron, the fabled beings 
of Ovid, and the mythology of Milton, will be the 
vaunted discoveries of the geologist, in controversion of 
the Mosaic records, of the creation and the deluge ; 
proving the wisdom of Bacon, that to associate natural 
philosophy with sacred cosmogony, will lead to heretical 
opinions ? Indeed, I remember in the Zendavesta of 
Zoroaster, the chronicle of the Magian religion (supposed 
to be a piracy from the book of Genesis), the sun is 
created before light. 

Ev. Fear not this, fair Ida. Rather believe with 
Bouget, that philosophy and natural theology mutually 
confirm each other. The latter teaches us that which it 
is our duty to believe ; the former to believe more firmly. 
And Lord Bacon himself, in his "^ Cogitata et Visa,^' 
deems natural philosophy ^' the surest antidote of super- 
stition, and the food of religious faith.^' 

The belief in existence of a preadamite world, pre- 
sumes not to controvert the Mosaic record of the deve- 
lopment of the globe, the creation of Adam, or the fall 
of man. Modern geology has peopled this preadamite 
world with saurians, or lizards, a race of beings not con- 
cerned in the punishment of that delinquency. Of the 
existence of these creatures there is no doubt ; the dis- 
covery of their fossil remains, without a vestige of the 
human skeleton, marks the period of their destruction, 
and that the crust of the globe enveloping these relics, 
might have been reduced to that chaos when ^^ the earth 
was without form and void, and darkness was upon the 
face of the deep ;'^ and from which our beautiful world 
was fashioned by a fiat. 

The truth of holy Scripture is too clear even to be 
disturbed by a sophist. You may recollect that Julian, 
the apostate, contemplated the reconstruction of the 
Temple of Jerusalem, in order to confute the prophecies ; 



POETRY OF NATURE. 177 

but Julian failed^ and misfortune was the lot of all who 
were leagued in the impiety. 

As to natural laws, think me not so profane as to cite 
such as the superstitious alchemyst, Paracelsus, in 
proof of their use in the working of a miracle ; who says 
that "^ devils and witches raise storms by throwing up 
alum and saltpetre into the air, which comes down as 
rain-drops V' 

And it were reversing this solemn argument were I 
to confess the doctrines of the Illuminaten, who, taught 
by Jacob Boehmen, and the mysticisms of his "Theo- 
sophia Revelata,'^ explained all nature^s laws by warping 
texts of Scripture to their purpose. Yet it is clear that 
even the miracles of the prophets may have been some- 
times influenced by established laws. Elisha raised the 
Shunamite^s son by placing mouth to mouth, as if by 
inhalation. 

Believe not then, fair Ida, that philosophy is set in 
array against religion, when the student of nature en- 
deavours to explain her phenomena by physical laws, 
for those laws the great Creator himself hath made. 



N 



NATURE OF SOUL AND MIND. 



And for my soul, what can it do for that, 

Being a thing immortal 1" Hamlet. 



Cast. We have risen with the lark to salute you, As- 
trophel. And you have really slept in Tintern Abbey ? 
Yet not alone ; " I see queen Mab hath been with you,^' 
and brushed you with her wing as you lay asleep. 

AsTR. Throughout the live-long night, sweet Cas- 
taly, I have revelled in a world of dreams. My couch 
and pillow were the green grass turf. No wonder that 
tales of the times of old should crowd on my memory, 
that elfin hps should whisper in my ear — 

Cast. ^^ The soft exquisite music of a dream.'^ 

Ida. Talk not of dreams so lightly, dear Castaly ; the 
visions of sleep are among the most divine mysteries of 
our nature: these transient flights of the spirit in a 
dream, unfettered as they seem by the will, are, to my 
own mind, among the most exalted proofs of its immor- 
tahty. Is it not so, Evelyn ? 

Ev. The mystery which you have glanced at, Ida, is 
the most sublime subject in metaphysics. Yet in our 
analysis of the phenomena of intellect, it is our duty to 
discard, with reverential awe, many of the notions of 



NATURE OF SOUL AND MIND. 1/9 

th^ pseudo psychologists in allusion to that self-evident 
truth, that requires not the support of such arguments. 
In tracing the mystery of a dream to its association 
with our immortal essence, reason will at length be in- 
volved in a maze of conjecture. True philosophy will 
never presume to explain the mystical union of spirit 
and of flesh; she would be bewildered even in their 
definitions, and would incur some peril of forming un- 
hallowed conclusions. Even the nature of the rational 
soul will involve him in endless conjecture, whether it 
be fire, as Zeno believed; or number, according to Xeno- 
crates ; or harmony, according to Aristoxenus ; or the 
lucid fire — ^the Creator of all things, of the Chaldean 
astrologers. 

He who aspires to a solution of the mystery, may 
wear out his brain in the struggle, as Philetas worked 
himself to death in a vain attempt to solve the celebrated 
" Pseudomenos," the paradox of the stoics ; or, like the 
gloomy students of the German school, he might con- 
clude his researches with a question like this rhapsody 
— unanswerable. 

" But thou, my spirit, thou that knowest this, that 
speakest to thyself, what art thou ? what wast thou ere 
this clay coat was cut for thee ? and what wilt thou be 
when this rain-coat, this sleeping-frock, fall off thee like 
a garment torn to pieces ? Whence comest thou ? where 
goest thou ? Ah ! where from and to, where darkness 
is before and behind thee ? Oh ye unclothed, ye naked 
spirits, hear this soHloquy — this soul-speech. Know ye 
that ye be ? Know ye that ye were, that ye are as we 
are or otherwise, in eternity ? Do ye work within us, 
when a holy thrilling darts through us like lightning, 
where not the skin trembles but the soul within us? 
Tell us, oh tell us, what then is death }" 

Now, if we reflect on the psychology of the Greeks, 
can we discern their distinctions of vovg, Trvcvjua, "^vxvy 

n2 



180 NATURE OF SOUL AND MIND. 

(TMfia, of soul or spirit — of spiritual body, or of idol and 
of earthly body ; or of Ovjuiog, ^ux^'^ ^^^ vovg, 4'^x^y ^^^ 
so forth? 

This fine distinction may be reduced to one simple 
proposition : — that soul and mind are the same, under 
different combinations: mind is soul evinced through 
the medium of the brain; soul is mind emancipated 
from matter. This principle, if established, might as- 
sociate the anomahes of many sophists ; the existence 
of two minds, the sensitive and intellectual, taught by 
the Alexandrian philosophers, or the tenets of Bishop 
Horsley, in his sermon before the Humane Society, 
the separation of the life of intellect from animal life ; 
and it might reconcile the abstract reasoning of medical 
philosophy, with the pure but misdirected arguments of 
the theological critic. 

We believe the spirit to be the essence of life and 
immortality ; and it signifies not whether our words 
are those of Stahl — that it presided over the animal 
body ; or those of Galen and Aristotle — that it directed 
the function of life. It is enough that we recognize 
the TTvoY} Z(i)r}g, or that breath of life, which the Creator 
breathed into none but man ; and the aiKcov Gtou, the 
image of God, in which he was created. In this one 
proposition all the points of this awful question are 
comprehended. And it is on this combined nature that 
we must reason, ere we discourse on sleep and dreams. 

Cast. I condole with you, Astrophel ; you must for- 
get the splendour of your dreams, and listen to their 
dull philosophy. 

AsTR. We may indeed sympathize with each other, 
Castaly ; we are threatened with another abstruse expo- 
sition of the mind, although we are already sated with 
the contrasted hypotheses of our deepest philosophers : 
the cogitation or self-reasoning of Descartes, (the essence 
of whose " Principia^^ was " Cogito, ergo sum ;'' and it 



NATURE OF SOUL. AND MIND. 181 

is an adoption of Milton^s Adam, " That I am, I know, 
because / think ." forgetting that the very ego which 
thinks, is a proof of prior existence;) and of Male- 
branche, who believed they existed because they thought; 
the abstract spiritualism of Berkley, who believed he 
existed merely because others thought of him ; the 
consciousness of Locke ; the idealism of Hume ; the ma- 
terial psychology of Paley ; the mental corporeality of 
Priestley ; and the absolute nonentity of Pyrrho. 

Ev. I leave these hypotheses to speak for themselves, 
Astrophel ; my own discourse will be wearying enough 
without them. 

Over the intricate philosophy of mind. Creative Wis- 
dom has thrown a veil, which we can never hope to 
draw aside. True, the beautiful mechanism of its organ, 
the brain, is apparent ; and we can draw some analogies 
from inspection of the brain of a brute, and its progres- 
sive development in foetal life, in reference to compara- 
tive simplicity and complexity ; but its phenomena are 
not, like most of the organic functions of the body, 
demonstrable. 

Now, although we know not the mode of this mutual 
influence, the seat of mind is a subject of almost universal 
belief; not that Aristotle, and ^tius, and John Locke, 
are our oracles on this point, although they have even 
identified the spot, terming the ventricles the mind's 
presence-chamber, while Descartes decided on \he pineal 
gland. It is, however, into the brain that the nerves of 
all the senses enter, or from which they emanate : the 
senses constitute the media by which the mind gains its 
knowledge of the world, and therefore we regard the 
brain as its seat. 

We believe that the mind may possess five faculties ; 
perception, association, memory, imagination, and judg- 
ment, and their focus or concentration is in the brain. 
We may argue long on the earthly nature of mind. 



182 NATURE OF SOUL AND MIND. 

contrasted with that of matter ; yet^ in the end, we com- 
monly thus define it : a combination of faculties^ and their 
sympathy with the senses. 

That to different parts of this organ are allotted dif- 
ferent functions cannot be doubted, when we look at 
its varied structure, its intricate divisions, its eccentric 
yet uniform cavities, its deHcate and almost invisible 
membranes ; and, indeed, physiological experiments are 
proof of it. 

AsTR. Then there is some truth in the whimsical 
locahties in the " Anatomy of Melancholy,^^ and the 
pictures of the tenants and apartments of the brain in 
the ingenious romance of the ^^ Purple Island ^' of 
Fletcher. 

Ev. Although I grant that these eccentric writers 
evince much reading, I am not sure that their imper- 
sonations (like the " Polyolbion^^ of Drayton,) do not 
tend to confuse, rather than elucidate, a natural sub- 
ject. 

Of a plurality of organs in the brain, I have been 
convinced, even from my own knowledge and dissec- 
tions. I have seen that very considerable portions of 
the cerebrum may be removed, the individual still exist- 
ing. The vital functions may continue, the animal func- 
tions are deranged or lost. The most extensive injuries 
of the brain, too, are often discovered, which were not 
even suspected; and the converse of this is often ob- 
served, — the diseases of the brain being commonly 
found in an inverse ratio to the severity of the symp- 
toms. When chronic tumours and cysts of water are 
gradually formed, the extreme danger is averted by the 
balancing power of the circulation of the brain's blood ; 
without which its incompressibility would subject it to 
constant injury. 

In tubercles of the brain, it is curious that memory is 
the faculty chiefly influenced ; it is sometimes rendered 



NATURE OF SOUL AND MIND. 183 

dull, while the fancy is vivid, — often more perfect and 
retentive. 

Brain, however, can no more be considered as mind 
itself, than retina sight, or than the sealing-wax can be 
identical with the electricity residing in it. For if we 
look at the brain of a brute, we see how closely it re- 
sembles our own ; then, if we reflect on human intellect 
and brute instinct, we must all believe at once that there 
is some diviner thing breathed into us than the anima 
brutorum of Aristotle, something more than the mere 
vitality, — 

" Spiritus intus alit, totamque infusa per artus 
' Mens agitat molem." 

Brain is therefore the habitat of mind, the workings 
of which cannot be indicated without it; for, as the 
material world would be intact without a sense, so there 
can be no mortal evidence of mind without a brain, 
which is indeed the sense of the spirit. Thus, without 
adopting the creed of the Hyloist, the moderate mate- 
rialist, — that the mind cannot have, during the Hfe of 
the body, even a momentary existence independent of 
matter, — I believe, that when this matter is in a state 
of repose, mind is perfectly passive to our cognizance, 

Ida. It is with diffidence, Evelyn, that I enter this 
arena with a physician, learned in the body; but is 
there no danger in this doctrine ? does it not imply the 
office of a gland, — -that brain is the origin of soul, and 
that its function was the secretion of thought, 

Ev. Such is the timid error of the mere metaphysi- 
cian, Ida. There is no such danger ; for, remember, if 
there be secretion, it is the soul which directs. Many a 
thought is referred to things which we cannot bring 
into contact with our consciousness, — except by the 
brain. 

Dr. Gall writes of a gentleman, whose forehead was 



184 NATURE OF SOUL AND MIND. 

far more elevated on the right side than the left ; and 
he deeply regretted that with this left side he could 
never think. And Spurzheim, of an Irish gentleman, 
who has the left side of the forehead the least developed 
by four lines, — he also could not think with that side, 
as indeed I have before hinted. 

I may tell you the brain is double, and one healthy 
hemisphere is sufficient, as the organ of mind, if pain or 
encroachment of the opposite, when diseased, does not 
destroy life, and this especially when it is a chronic 
change, or exists from birth ; so that I have often seen 
one hemisphere of the brain a pulpy bag of water, and 
yet vitality and many signs of intellect may still exist ; 
nay, even if the whole brain be reduced to one medullary 
bag, animal life shall for some time be preserved. 

To oppose this blending of mind and matter. Lord 
Brougham (in his Natural Theology) likens the marble 
statue hewn into beauty, to the perfect arrangement of 
organization in a being. While I admire the idea, I 
may observe that he forgets this truth, — that the maker 
of the one was a mere statuary, without even the fabu- 
lous power of Prometheus, or Pygmalion, or Franken- 
stein ; the other, the Creator of all things, who breathed 
a breath of life into the shape he had made fitted to receive 
it. My lord thus halts at the threshold of discovery : 
mind is not the product of organization, but it works by 
and through it ; and therefore, for its earthly uses, can- 
not be independent of the qualities of matter. We may 
as well agree with Plato, in endowing the soul with ^^ a 
plastic power, to fashion a body for itself, to enter a 
shape and make it a body living.^^ I remember Plutarch 
(in his Quaest. Platon.) makes him say, that the soul is 
older than the body, and the source of its existence, 
and that the intellect is in this soul. But where is the 
sacred evidence of this ? for, even in our antenatal state, 
we live, and yet there is probably no consciousness ; 



NATURE OF SOUL AND MIND. 185 

there is vitality, at least, without the consciousness of 
an intellect. 

AsTR. As the creation of light was before that of the 
sun, its reservoir, so the creation of the soul might be 
before the brain, in which the Creator subsequently 
placed it. 

Ev. For this there is sacred evidence, Astrophel. 
There was light, ere the sun was created as its reser- 
voir ; but the soul was breathed into the body, which 
was already then created. 

AsTR. This is a specimen of your special pleading, 
Evelyn, allied to that perilous error of Priestley, that 
supposed function and structure to be identical, because 
they are inflenced by the same disease, and seem to live 
and die, flourish and decay, together. Democritus also 
has written his belief that, " as the smell of a rose exists 
in the bloom, and fades as that dies, so the soul of an 
animal is born with its birth, and dies with its death.^^ 
You have conceded to me (and we must all be conscious 
of) the great difficulty of conceiving the nature of spirit ; 
but, if we are required to prove its existence, we may an- 
swer, by analogy, that we cannot always palpably prove 
the existence of matter, although we know it to exist. 
The electric fluid may remain for an indefinite period 
invisible, nay, may never meet the sight, — it may even 
traverse a space without any evidence but that of its 
wonderful influence, and at length be collected in a jar. 

As hght, existing in remote stars, has not yet 
reached our earth, so the electricity is now residing in 
myriads of bodies, which will never be elicited ; and 
thus (if I may extend the simile) the principle of life, 
whatever it be, may have an independent existence 
during life, may leave the body and yet not perish. Is 
not this a fine illustration of the living of the soul with- 
out the body ; for here even a grosser matter, yet invi- 
sible, is evinced by its passage from one thing to 



186 NATURE OF SOUL AND MIND. 

another^ although it is inert when involved in the sub- 
stance ? 

Ida. May I not fear that the errors of philosophy, 
grounded on the difficulty of conceiving the nature of 
a self-existent spirit, will not stop until they lapse into 
the behef of annihilation ? 

For there are many suspicious sentiments even in the 
pages of well-meaning writers ; such are the dangerous 
sentiments which Boswell has ascribed to Miss Seward : 
" There is one mode of the fear of death which is cer- 
tainly absurd, and that is the dread of annihilation, 
which is only a pleasing sleep without a dream.^^ 

There may be nothing terrible in the condition of 
annihilation, yet the moral effect is deplorable ; indeed, 
to doubt the eternal existence is to argue that man^s 
life is but a plaything of the Deity. The notion of an- 
nihilation is so abhorrent, that he who believes it dooms 
himself indeed to a miserable existence ; for the crown- 
ing solace of a Christian Hfe is holy hope, and behef in 
the priceless gift of immortahty. 

" Know'st thou th' importance of a soul immortal ? 
Behold this midnight glory — worlds on worlds ! 
Amazing pomp : redouble this amaze ! 
Ten thousand add ; and twice ten thousand more ; 
Then weigh the whole ; one soul outweighs them all, 
And calls th' astonishing magnificence 
Of miintelhgent creation poor." 

Would that Priestley had read wisely that prophetic 
truth in Ecclesiastes : " Then shall the dust return to 
the earth as it was, and the spirit shall return unto God 
who gave it.^^ 

Ev. I do not approve his latitude of thought, yet it 
were severe to think this, even of Priestley, merely be- 
cause he disbelieved separate spiritual existence ; for 
Aristotle also asserts, that " the soul could not exist 
ivithout the body, and yet that it was not the body, but a 



NATURE OF SOUL AND MIND. 187 

part of if Zeno, and the Stoics, termed that which 
was called a spirit material; and not only Ray and 
Derham, but even Paley, and Johnson, disbelieved the 
separate existence. The archdeacon's opinion, that we 
should ^have a substantial resurrection, is founded on 
New-Testament evidence, and expressed in his discourse 
on a future state. The apostle's simile of the wheat 
implies a death of the grain : it dies, but there is no 
remodelling, for it is the germ that lives and grows ; so, 
although the body may not be restored, there is a de- 
velopment of its germ in the transit or resurrection of 
its spirit. The sage thought also the simile of St. Paul 
should be taken literally, and not figuratively : and yet 
he qualifies it thus : ^^ We see that it is not to be the 
same body, for the Scripture uses the illustration of 
grain sown (which in its exact sense implies an offspring, 
and not a resurrection), and we know that the grain 
which grows is not the same with what is sown. You 
cannot suppose that we shall rise with a diseased body ; 
it is enough if there be such a sameness as to distinguish 
identity of person." 

Blumenbach believed that when the soul revived, 
after death, the brain would equally revive ; and there 
is, indeed, nothing very irrational in all this, for death 
is, even to our senses, not an annihilation, but only a 
new combination of matter. The Greek sceptics thought 
that the teeth would remain perfect, if all else was de- 
composed and lost ; and the rabbins conferred this per- 
petuity on one bone of the spinal column, which they 
called LUZ. These strange notions of the mystic 
union may explain to us that diversity of custom, in 
various nations, as to the disposal of the dead. While 
the Irish papists, with a superstitious reverence for in- 
animate clay, celebrate their wakes with rites often as 
hcentious as they are profane ; the cannibal Calatics 
thought it more respectful to eat the bodies of their 



188 NATURE OF SOUL AND MIND. 

departed friends, at least so writes Herodotus ; and the 
filial love of other Indian tribes invites the children to 
strangle their aged parents, as they sit in their fresh- 
made graves. 

It is certainly more consolatory to associate our 
thoughts with the immortal part of a lost friend ; to be- 
lieve the spirit to be in celestial keeping, and that it 
still hovers around us. The collapse and change of fea- 
tures prove that the body is then but as the dust from 
which it was first formed. I would not wish, like 
Socrates, to have my limbs scattered over the earth, 
because 

*' Coelo tegitur qui non habet urnam ;" 

but, as the body must be consumed, were it not better 
and safer, as the Greeks did, to burn the dead, to resolve 
the corpse, as soon as possible, into its constituent ele- 
ments. I shall ever remember with horror the scenes 
which I witnessed in Naples, when Sipile of bodies, col- 
lected fi:"om the chapels by the dead carts, which go 
round the city at night, was thrown by irreverent hands 
into the public cemetery of the Campo Santo. 

The fiat of the Creator may at once produce a recon- 
struction of the body, however widely scattered its par- 
ticles, and the return of the soul to the brain, from 
which it had once departed ; but is it not somewhat 
irrational to think that we should again be endowed 
with organs, without the functions and passions to which 
they are subservient? 

Ida. It may be a bliss to gaze even on the shadows 
of those we love. There is a beautiful allegory of this 
solemn question told in the ^^ Spectator,^^ which, as 
Addison approves, it cannot be profanation to admire. 
It is the Indian legend of ^^ Marraton and Yaratilda,^^ in 
which the devoted husband comes unawares on Paradise, 
and sees the shadowy forms of his wife and children, 



NATURE OF SOUL AND MJND. 189 

without their substance. The story exquisitely blends the 
fond wish of Marraton to die^ that he may be again ad- 
mitted to the holy communion of those so fondly loved ; 
for Paradise is painted in the mind^s eye even of the 
heathen, although, in his dearth of revelation, he asso- 
ciates the joys of his elysium with the sensual pleasures 
of terrestrial life. The Indian dreams of his dogs, be- 
lieving that the greatest hunters shall be in the highest 
favour with Brahma ; the proselytes of the prophet die 
in a vision of their houri^s beauty ; and the warriors of 
Odin already drink the honey-water from the skulls of 
their enemies, served up to them by the beautiful 
" Valkhas^' of the " Valhalla/' Thus even the creed of 
infidels is not atheism. What thinks Evelyn ? 

Ev. As you do, Ida. As to the atheist, one, per- 
chance, may have lived, if we rightly interpret the senti- 
ments of Diogenes, and Bion, and Lucian, and Voltaire ; 
but, I believe, one never died. My solemn duty has 
summoned me to the death-bed of more than one re- 
puted infidel, who have in health reasoned with fluency 
and splendour, and have penned abstruse theses on life 
and the world's creation. But, when danger lay in their 
path of life, their stoic heroism fled, and left them ab- 
ject cowards. They looked not even on the lightning's 
flash without trembling, and the vision of death was a 
sting to the conscience. I have seen many a death-bed 
Hke that of Beaufort, who made '^ no signal of his hope," 
not because he disbelieved a God, but because a con- 
viction of his sin left him without a hope and faith in 
the promises. 

Of course there cannot be an Euthanasia where irre- 
ligion has marked a life, but, believe me, there would be 
no fear of death in an atheist. 

AsTR. The mythologist and pagan may cite their 
tables, and worship their idols in the recesses of their 
pagodas and choultries ; but some idea of the Deity has 



190 NATURE OF SOUL AND MIND. 

been unfolded to the mind of all. Even the eastern 
princes have had some glimpses of the true faith^ and 
shahs and caliphs were once engaged in building their 
Nestorine or Christian churches. 

The profane Chinese has^ it is true^ called his realm 
the celestial empire; Fohi^ who is believed to have 
reigned three thousand years before Christ, established 
his ^^ Iconolatria^^ or " idolatry/^ and Si Lao Kiun struck 
at the establishment of polytheism, but the purer theo- 
logy of Confucius prevailed over his rival. 

The Deity, indeed, is the essence of every creed, for 
all beheve in a great spirit as well as an immortal mind 
and a paradise. Like the reasonings of natural philo- 
sophy, our notions and epithets of the great Creator 
certainly differ, but in all there is faith in his perfection. 
Xam Ti is the great spirit of the Chinese, as Woden is 
the god of the Gothic races, and Brahma, or Alia, or 
the Kitchi Manitou, or even the sun, the source of 
light, and heat, and joy to the creation, are the deities 
of other nations. Nor may we wonder more that the 
Ghebir, and the Peruvian, and the Natches should wor- 
ship their orb of fire, than that the Irish should, on the 
morning of their Beltane, light their peat fires to the 
sun. 

The doctrines of the Brahmins all attest their creed 
of theism, if we interpret aright the evidence of the 
learned Pundits of Benares, especially in the Gentoo 
code ; and the records of Abul Fazel in the ^^ Baghvat 
Geeta,^^ an episode in the poem of the ^^ Mahabarat," 
written to prove the unity. The devout Christian will 
deem this creed a woful error, but he will confess his 
admiration of their sublime notion of the divine attri- 
bute, which Colonel Dow has thus imparted to us : "As 
God is immaterial, he is above all conception ; as he is 
invisible, he can have no form ; but from what we be- 
hold of his works, we may conclude that he is eternal. 



NATURE OF SOUL AND MIND. IQl 

omnipotent, knowing all things, and present every- 
where.'^ 

I will grant that the oriental notions of cosmogony, 
or the creation of the world, are a blot on their scripture 
page : because the pagan theologians were shorn of the 
light of Christianity, they were prone to refer creation 
to natural causes within their own comprehension, and 
their ideas were fabulous and impure. Thus, among 
the Hindoos and Egyptians, there is a mass of obscenity 
adduced to account for the development of the globe, 
in the associations of Vishnu and Siva, and Osiris and 
Isis; and the temples of Elephanta and Elora are 
adorned with symbolic paintings of this incarnation of 
Vishnu. Yet, with all this error, there is in the " Vedas" 
or Hindoo scriptures, a not remote analogy to the Bible 
itself; and, granting that the cosmogony of Phoenicia is 
little more than a mysterious romance; yet, whether the 
great cause be the demiurgic spirit uniting with desire, 
or the being ^^ That'' of the Hindoos, the essence of all 
these mysteries still combines the grand scheme of the 
creation, — ^the formation of a beautiful world from a 
chaos of wide and dark waters. 

Ida. You are wandering very far eastward, Astro- 
phel : I will propose this question to Evelyn. 

If it is so evident that the brain and mind, although 
not identical, exist in a most intimate union, may we 
not undervalue their relative influence by adducing the 
energy of intellect and brilliancy of conception possessed 
by many in advanced life ? Remember the green old 
age of Plato, and Cicero, and Newton, and Johnson, 
and, above all, Goethe, whose last work was brilliant as 
his first. And all this, coincident with that love of 
Infinite Wisdom that exists, (as we read in the " Con- 
solations of a Philosopher,") ^^even in the imperfect 
life which belongs to the earth, increases with age, out- 
lives the perfection of the corporeal faculties, and, at 



192 NATURE OF SOUL AND MIND. 

the moment of death is felt by the conscious being.'^ 
Does this imply decay ? 

Ev. The retentive powers of old age^ are the excep- 
tion to a rule, which the ultra spiritualist assumes as a 
general rule, in attempting to disprove the growth and 
decay of mind, according to the age of the body. But 
as lives are of different duration and constitutions vary, 
so may mental powers indicate different degrees of 
vigour. If mind mcreases, no doubt it c?ecreases ; and 
I have known many, who retain every faculty but me- 
mory, which is the first to decay and indicate faihng 
power ; and so also is it with idiots, in whose memory, 
usually, the greatest defects appear ; the faculty of 
counting numbers reaches only to three, and of letters 
to C, the third letter in the alphabet. 

Ida will grant that there is no more impressive lesson 
of humility than the dwindling and decay of genius, 
when, in the words of the Athenian misanthrope — 

" Nature, as it grows again toward earth, 
Is fashion'd for the journey, dull and heavy." 

Reflect on the painful end of Sheridan and other bril- 
liant wits of their day ; that 

" From Marlborough's eyes the streams of dotage flow. 
And S^\dft expires a driveller and a show ;" 

and we may almost wish that biography should begin 
at each end, and finish in the middle, or zenith of a life. 
Ida. If the fact be so, I grant the lesson to our pride, 
Evelyn ; and we may dwell with fervent admiration on 
the divinity of that mind, which can ennoble and conse- 
crate our body, so fraught as it is with basest passions, 
and so decayable withal. 



NATURE OF SLEEP. 



Sleep, gentle sleep ! 



Nature's soft nurse." Henry IV. Part ii. 

Ida. I begin to perceive the importance of this digres- 
sion on the nature of mind. You wish us to beheve, 
there is a temporary desertion of the spirit from the 
body, and therefore the body sleeps ? 

Ev. Not absolute desertion, but a limit to its in- 
fluence. Many have thought in conformity to your 
question ; and indeed, Ida, it is a belief so holy, that I 
may feel it to be almost an impiety to differ. 

From the time of Aristotle to Haller, the term 
" Sleep '^ expresses that condition which is marked by 
a cessation of certain mental manifestations, coincident 
with the degree of oppression ; for it is an error to say 
that the body sleeps, — it is the brain only, perhaps I may 
say, the cerebrum, or the fore lobes ; for I believe the 
lower part of it (that which imparts an energy to the 
process of breathing and of blood circulation) is never 
in a complete sleep, but merely in a state of languor, 
or rather of repose, sufficient for its restoration, — if it 
were to sleep, death would be the result. 

This repose is in contrast with a state of waking, that 
activity of mind in which ideas are constantly chasing 



194 NATURE OF SLEEP. 

each other Hke the waves of ocean ; the mode of dis- 
placing one idea being by the excitement of another in 
its place. 

In that state of sound sleep which overcomes chil- 
dren, whose tender brains are soon tired, or old persons 
whose brains are worn^ and in persons of httle reflection, 
— the mind is perfectly passive, and its manifestations 
cease. 

So writes Professor Stewart, — that there was a total 
suspension of volition during sleep, as regards its in- 
fluence over mental or corporeal faculties ; and I may 
even adduce a scrap from Burton, although I am an 
admirer of the quaint old compiler for little else than 
his measureless industry : — 

" Sleep is a rest or binding of the outward senses, 
and of the common sense, for the preservation of body 
and soul. Illigation of senses proceeds from an inhibi- 
tion of spirits, the way being stopped by which they 
should come ; this stopping is caused by vapours aris- 
ing out of the stomach, filHng the nerves by which the 
spirits should be conveyed. When these vapours are 
spent, the passage is open, and the spirits perform their 
accustomed duties: so that waking is the action and 
motion of the senses, which the spirits, dispersed over 
all parts, cause.^^ 

AsTR. But is volition always suspended even in sound 
sleep ? Was it not the opinion of Berkley, that the mind 
even then was percipient ? How else can we account 
for the waking exactly at one predetermined hour ? If 
we retire to sleep at the latest hour, or oppressed with 
fatigue, so strong an impression is produced in our 
mind, that the breaking of our sleep is almost at the 
given moment. 

Ev. I will answer you at present, Astrophel, only by 
analysis ; it is not yet time to explain, 

I may grant that there is some latent effect, — passive 



NATURE OF SLEEP. 195 

memory^ if you will, — for we do not count the hours in 
sleep, and calculate our time by the clock ; but we wake, 
and soon the bell strikes. 

We have on record some very curious instances of 
the periodical recurrence of ideas in a waking state, the 
measurement of time being referrible to mental impres- 
sion, mechanically established by constant habit. 

There was an idiot once, who was in the habit of 
amusing himself constantly by counting the hours as 
they were struck on the clock. It chanced, after some 
time, that the works of the clock were injured, so that 
the striking for a time had ceased. The idiot, notwith- 
standing, continued to measure the day with perfect 
correctness, by counting and beating the hour. This is 
a story of Dr. Plott's, in his History of Staffordshire. 

There is one of more modern date, somewhat ana- 
logous to this. 

I may quote Holy Writ in support of this passive con- 
dition of true sleep ; nay, even its similitude to death. 
How often do we find allusions to sleep and death 
as synonymous ! Sir Thomas Brown was impressed 
so deeply with this likeness, that he " did not dare to 
trust it without his prayers.^^ And the Macedonian, 
who wished for more worlds to conquer, confessed his 
sleep proved to him his mortality. I may quote ancient 
poetry also in my support. Homer and Virgil describe 
sleep as the ^^ Brother of Death ''' and, among the pro- 
fane poets of later times, the same sublime association 
is traced of this 

" Mortis imago — et simulacrum." 

Among the ancient allegories, sleep is portrayed as a 
female, with black unfolded wings, — in her left hand, a 
white child, the image of Sleep ; in her right, a black 
child, the image of Death. 

o 2 



196 NATURE OF SLEEP. 

On the tomb of Cypselus, according to Pausanias^ 
night is thus personified. 

Cast. How true^ then^ was the thought of the first 
deep sleeper, on the sensation of slumber : — 

" There gentle sleep 

First found me, and with soft oppression seiz'd 
My drowned sense, untroubled ; tho' I thought 
I then was passing to my former state, 
Insensible, and forthwith to dissolve." 

But how fearful is this resemblance which changes 
^^ tir'd nature's sweet restorer'^ into a type of death ! 
Pr'ythee, Evelyn, do not affright me thus, by clothing 
sleep with terror, as if it were disease and danger. 

Ev. Why tremble for the mortal sleep of the just and 
good, who will feel, with William Hunter, on their 
death-bed, ^^how pleasant and easy it is to die;" and 
with another moralist, — 

" Oh what a wonder seems the fear of death. 
Seeing how gladly we all sink to sleep ; 
Night follo^^'ing night !" 

Fear not, Castaly ; I do not term slumbet^ and gentle 
sleep disease, but signs of health. Not so, however, 
many a profound sleep, and its advances towards coma ; 
those results of exhaustion from excess, or from intense 
and direct narcotics, as opium sleep, and the para- 
lyzing senselessness from extreme cold, as in the story 
of Sir Joseph Banks and Dr. Solander in the antarctic 
regions. 

You are aware that many remedies in medicine may 
be so intense as to cause fatality : inflammation, too, is 
the restorative process of wounds, but if in excess it is 
fatal. Appetite also, to a certain degree, is healthy; 
but craving and thirst, its extremes, are proved, by 
suffering, to be morbid. 



NATURE OF SLEEP. 197 

If the mind is composed to perfect rest, it is lulled to 
senselessness ; then metaphysically we are said to sleep : 
the mind is not excited by thought, and, in consequence, 
its supply of arterial blood is less, the more rapid flow 
of which would be the cause of waking. 

Within certain limits sleep is a remedy ; but it be- 
comes perilous when intense, or too much indulged. 
One eccentric physician, as we read in the learned 
Boerhave, even fancied sleep the natural condition of 
man, and was wont to yield to its influence during 
eighteen of the twenty-four hours ; but apoplexy soon 
finished his experiment. 

This negative quiescence (for sleep is not a positive 
state) allows the restoration of energy, and then we 
wake. Even the senses accumulate their power in 
sleep ; the eye is dazzled by the light when we wake, 
from the sensitiveness imparted by this accumulation. 

The conceits regarding the cause of sleep are so va- 
rious, that if I were to discuss their merits I should only 
weary your patience, as I perceive I have already done. 

Some have thought that sleep arose from certain con- 
ditions of the blood in the vessels and nerves of the 
brain ; its congestion in the sinuses ; or a reflux of a 
great portion of it towards the heart : the result of de- 
pressed nervous energy — exhaustion, fatigue, cold, and 
the influence of powerful narcotics, or the combustion 
of charcoal. Others, that sleep arises from the depo- 
sition of fresh matter on the brain, and its sudden pres- 
sure. Then we have the cerebral collapse of CuUen, and 
of Richerand ; the deficiency of animal spirits of Haller ; 
the diminished afflux of blood to the brain of Blumen- 
bach ; and the exhausted irritability of the Brunonian 
theory adopted by Darwin. 

Where the truth lies I presume not to decide, but it 
is clear there is a necessity for the occasional repose of 
the mental organ : 



198 NATURE OF SL.EEP. 

" Non semper arcum 

Tendit Apollo." 

Watchfulness invariably reduces^ even in the brute : 
the wild elephant is tamed by the perseverance of the 
hunter in keeping it constantly awake. 

The mind^ then, as it is manifested to us (for deeply 
important is it that we confound not the perfect and 
pure, because unembodied essence of the soul, with its 
combined existence in the brain — that union from which 
a thought is born), the mind cannot exert itself beyond 
a certain period without a sensation of fatigue in the 
brain, as palpable as the exhaustion from excessive mus- 
cular exertion. And this depends on a natural law, 
that organs after acting a certain given period, flag and 
lose their energy. Thus the first harbinger of sleep is 
the closing of the lids from languor, and relaxation of 
the muscles. Muscular fibre will, however, regain its 
expenditure by simple rest, requiring a certain period 
for this re-accumulation, like the charging of an electrical 
jar. Sleep, however, is not always a sequence of ex- 
hausted irritability of muscle ; we may be too tired to 
sleep ; and thought and memory also will keep the 
mind awake, and prevent nervous energy from renewing 
corporeal vigour. 

The excitement of thought beyond certain limits is 
both painful and destructive, evincing its effects by 
various grades of mental disorder, from simple headache 
to confirmed mania. Our first ray of hope, in fever, is 
often the coming on of a quiet sleep, and in the sad 
cases of delirium tremens we must either sleep or die ; 
the effort of philosophical determination to overcome 
the depression only adding to its intensity, as in the 
case of a person worn out by labour, in attempting to 
labour on. This conflict cannot be more pertinently 
exemplified than by some passages in the life of Collins, 
by one who knew him well : — 



NATURE OF SLEEP. 199 

"He languished some years under that depression of 
mind which unchains the faculties without destroying 
them, and leaves reason the knowledge of right without 
the power of pursuing it. These clouds which he per- 
ceived gathering on his intellects, he endeavoured to 
disperse by travel, and passed into France ; but found 
himself constrained to yield to his malady, and returned. 
His disorder was no alienation of mind, but general 
laxity and feebleness, a deficiency rather of his vital 
than intellectual powers. What he spoke wanted neither 
judgment nor spirit, but a few minutes exhausted him, 
so that he was forced to rest upon the couch, till a 
short cessation restored his powers, and he was again 
able to talk with his former vigour." 

I believe that sensibility and fatigue of mind, by in- 
ducing sleeplessness, may often be the source even of 
mania. 

The sleep of animals is usually light, especially that 
of birds, and they are easily startled when at roost. 
The cackling of the geese on their awaking, you know, 
saved the Roman capitol. Yet sleep is altogether very 
nearly balanced with waking. Some animals sleep 
often, like the cats, but they are long awake, and prowl- 
ing in the night. The python and the boa are also 
long awake, and then sleep for many days during the 
process of digestion. Indeed, all the fer(B fall into 
sound sleep after feeding ; while the ruminants scarcely 
sleep at all ; nor do they crouch like the fer(B, with the 
head between the legs : but then their whole life is one 
scene of quiet ; rumination is a mindless reverie. The 
West Indian slaves and the Hottentots, or woolly bipeds, 
resemble the brute animal in this, that they fall asleep 
as soon as their labour is concluded. 

That activity of mind in excess may induce even 
mania, I may offer two impressive, although negative, 
proofs, from the records of Dr. Rush. — " In despotic 



200 NATURE OF SLEEP. 

countries, and where the public passions are torpid, and 
where life and property are secured only by the extinc- 
tion of domestic affections, madness is a rare disease. 
Dr. Scott informed me that he heard of but one single 
instance of madness in China.^^ 

" After much inquiry, I have not been able to find a 
single instance of fatuity among the Indians, and but 
few instances of melancholy and madness. ^^ 

I may add, that Baron Humboldt assures us of this 
immunity among the wild Indians of South America. 

Ida. And may not this melancholy effect be averted 
by caution and rule ? We have a saying in Hereford- 
shire, that '^ Six hours are enough for a man, seven for 
a woman, and eight for a fool.^^ 

Ev. There cannot be a fixed rule on that point, ex- 
cept the prevailing law of nature, — the feeling of neces- 
sity ; but this may often lead astray. 

It is calculated that one half of a child's life is passed 
in sleep, and one quarter to one sixth of the adult exist- 
ence ; but for old age there is no essential period or 
limit. Old Parr slept almost constantly about the close 
of his life ; while Dr. Gooch records the case of one 
whose period of sleep was only one quarter of an hour 
in the twenty-four. It is well to inure an infant to a 
gradual diminution of its time of sleep, so that at ten 
years old its period should be about eight hours. 

The strength or energy of brain wiU, when aided by 
custom, modify the faculty of controlling the disposi- 
tion to slumber. Frederick the Great, and our own 
Hunter, slept only five hours in the twenty-four ; while 
Napoleon seemed to exert a despotic power over sleep 
and waking, even amid the roaring of artillery. Sir J. 
Sinclair slept eight hours, and Jeremy Taylor three. 
As a general precept, however, for the regulation of 
sleep in energetic constitutions, I might propose the 
wise distribution which Alfred made of his own time 



NATURE OF SLEEP. 201 

into three equal periods, — one being passed in sleep, 
diet, and exercise, one in despatch of business, and one 
in study and devotion. Careful habit will often pro- 
duce sleep at regular and stated periods, as it will 
render the sleeper insensible or undisturbed by loud 
noises ; the gunner will fall asleep on the carriage amid 
the incessant discharge of the cannon ; and, if I remem- 
ber right, the slumbers of the bell-ringer of Notre Dame 
were not broken by the striking of the quarters and the 
hour close to his ear. 

Ida. And at what seasons should we wake and sleep ? 
It seems to me, that the Creator himself has written his 
precepts in the diurnal changes of this world, that are still 
so healthfully observed by the peasant, but so strangely 
perverted by the capricious laws of fashion, and even 
by the romantic 

" sons of night, 
And maids that love the moon ;" 

always excepting Astrophel and Castaly. It moves my 
wonder that they who have looked upon the beauty of 
a sunrise from the mountain, or the main, can be caught 
sleeping, when such a flood of glory, beyond all the 
glare of peace-rejoicings and birth-lights, bursts upon 
the world. 

Ev. The wisest have thought with you, Ida, although 
there was one idle poet, even Thomson, who confessed 
he had '^ noe motive for rising early .^' It was the cus- 
tom of Jewel and Burnet to rise at four ; and BufFon, 
we are told, rewarded his valet with a crown, if he suc- 
ceeded in getting him up before six. 

It is to slight the creation, not to enjoy the beauties 
of daylight ; and it is the natural time for sleep, when 
the dews of night are on the earth. The proof of this : 
— There were two French colonels who were marching 
their troops, one by day, the other by night ; and the 



202 NATURE OF SLEEP. 

loss in men and horses was very far greater among the 
night marchers. 

Cast. I beUeve it was Panza, who " never desired a 
second sleep, because the first lasted from night till 
morning/^ — that immortal Sancho Panza, whose quaint 
rhapsody we must all echo so gratefully, — " Blessed is he 
that first invented sleep .'^ The eulogies of this bhssful 
state, and the waiHngs of a sleepless spirit, have ever 
been a favourite theme of the poet, and our own ancient 
dramatists, — as Beaumont and Fletcher, in the play of 
^^ Valentinian,^^ and Shakspere, from the lips of Henry 
IV. in his beautiful invocation, and Young, and many 
others. 

Ev. Sleeplessness is one of the severest penalties of 
our nature. In the darkness and silence of night the 
wakeful mind preys on itself; the pulse is rapid, it is a 
throb of anguish, — to the wearied thought there is no 
conclusion, and the parched tongue prays in vain for 
the morning light. In the curse of Kehama, I think 
the sleepless lid is one of the most cruel inflictions ; and 
in the severe disorder which we term hemicrania, this 
curse is to a degree realized. 

The sleeplessness of Cahgula is related by Suetonius. 
In Barthohnus, we read of one who slept not for three 
months, and he became a melancholy hypochondriac. 
And Boerhave, from intense study, was constantly 
awake during six weeks. 

Ida. We are happy in our quiet minds, are we not, 
dear Castaly ? yet, if we are ever summoned to the 
couch of one wearied by night watching, Evelyn will 
tell us how we may soothe the pillow of a sleepless 
mind, to which the secret of inducing slumber would 
be a priceless treasure. 

Ev. Study the causes of insomnia, or sleeplessness, 
Ida ; as those which excite nervous irritability, — coffee, 
green tea, small doses of opium, the protracted use of 



NATURE OF SLEEP. 203 

antimony, &c. ; and believe not in the virtues of vulgar 
remedies, often as dangerous as they are ridiculous. 
There is a batch of these which Burton has gleaned 
from various authors ; as a sample, — nutmegs, man- 
drakes, wormwood ; and from Cardan and Miraldus,— 
the anointing the soles of the feet with the fat of a 
dormouse, and the teeth with the ear-wax of a dog, 
swine^s galls, hares^ ears, &c. 

I might offer to you many plain precepts for the 
alleviation of the light causes of sleeplessness; and 
while I dole them out to you in very dulness, you will 
fancy my gold-headed cane to my chin, and other 
essential symbols of an Esculapius of the olden time. 
Adopt, then, a free ventilation in summer, and airing 
in winter, of the chamber. This should never be a 
mere closet, always above the ground floor, neither very 
light nor dark, the window not being close to the bed, 
and, above all, not in the vicinity of stoves, ovens, and 
large kitchen fires. Do not allow the windows to be 
open throughout the night, to admit the cold dew or 
air; and, in winter, the basket-fire should be placed 
there for an hour before you enter your chamber. A 
slight acceleration of the circulation may be produced 
by gentle exercise before rest ; and two or three wafer 
biscuits or spring water, to prevent the wakeful effects 
of both chilliness and hunger. A light woollen sock may 
be worn, which is unconsciously displaced when sleep 
comes on, and the night-cap should be Uttle more than 
a net, except during the very cold months. The posi- 
tion of the body should be that which is the easiest, 
except the supine, which induces congestion and often 
" night mare ;^' and if there be much sensitiveness of 
the surface, the hydrostatic bed should be employed, 
but that not too long, as it will become heated by pro- 
tracted pressure. Children should not be enveloped in 
clothes, nor crowded in bed; nor should infants be 



204 NATURE OF SLEEP. 

shaken, or tossed, or patted, as foolish nurses too often 
do. 

There are many simple modes of inducing slumber : 
I allude not to poppy and henbane, nor to the pillow of 
hops, which, in the case of the third George, was the 
charm that sealed up the lids of the king ; but to other 
modes, such as a tedious recital, (something like my 
own dull prosing,) the gentle motion of a swing, a cot 
or cradle, the ripple of a stream, and the dashing of a 
waterfall, the waving of a fan, the caw of rooks, the 
hum of bees, the murmur of an ^olian harp — 

Cast. So gracefully wound up in that quaint 
morceau, the ^^ Fairy Queen,^^ when Archimago sends the 
spirit to fetch a dream from Morpheus — 

" Cynthia still doth steepe 
In silver dew his ever-drooping head, 
Whiles sad night over him her mantle black doth spred. 

And more to lull him in his slumber soft, 
A trickling stream, from high rocke tumbling downe, 
And ever dringling rain upon the loft, 
Mix'd vi^ith a murmuring winde, much like the soune 
Of swarming bees, did cast him in a swoune." 



SUBLIMITY AND IMPERFECTION OF 
DREAMING. 



" We are such stuff 
As dreams are made of, and our little life 
Is rounded by a sleep." Tempest. 



Ev. In the transition to wad from the repose of sleep, 
the mind is sinking into oblivion, and thought is fading, 
and the senses and sensation are overshadowed in 
their regress to insensibility : even instinct is well nigh 
a blank. This is the state of slumber. Then, I believe, 
and only then, are we ever wandering in the ideal laby- 
rinth of DREAMS. 

There is a curious calculation of Cabanis, that certain 
organs or senses of the body fall asleep at regular pro- 
gressive periods ; some, therefore, may be active while 
others are passive, and in this interesting state, I may 
hint to you, consists the essence of a dream. It seems 
that in dreamless sleep, the senses fall asleep altogether, 
as in the case of Plutarch^s friends, Thrasymenes and 
Cleon, and others who never dreamed. 

AsTR. So there is some truth in the fanciful conceit 
of Cardanus, that ^'•' Sleep is the rest of the spirits, 
— ^waking their vehement motion, and dreaming their 
tremulous motion.^^ 

Cast. And philosophy plumes herself on her won- 



206 SUBLIMITY AND IMPERFECTION 

derous intuition for this discovery. Let her blush, and 
kneel before the shrine of poesy. The poets, even of a 
ruder age than ours, have thought and written before 
you, Evelyn, and have unfolded these arcana. How 
doth Chaucer usher in his ^^ Dreme ? ^' — 

" Halfe in dede sclepe, not fully revyved ;" 

and again : 

" For on this wyse upon a night 
As ye have herd withouten light, 
Not all wak}Tig ne full on slepe, 
About such hour as lovirs wepe ;" 

and in " La Belle Dame sans Mercy,'^ there is the same 
thought : 

" Halfe in a dreme, not fully well awaked ;" 

and in Sir Walter^s ^^ Antiquary :'^ " Eh, sirs, sic weary 
dreams as folk hae between sleeping and waking, before 
they win to the long sleep and the sound/^ So will 
your philosophy dwindle somewhat in its consequence. 
Sir Gierke. 

Ev. We are not jealous of these glimpses of a poet, 
Castaly ; they impart a value to their rhymes : we enrol 
such poets in the rank of philosophers. 

Ida. Solve me this question, Evelyn : is there any 
relative difference between the subjects of dreams before 
and after sleep ? 

Ev. It has been thought that there is more reference 
to reahty in the first, and more confusion and wander- 
ing of imagination in the second ; but as nature is often 
excited rather than exhausted at night, there may be 
equal brightness with the morning dream, occurring 
after the recreation and refreshment of sleep. 

Cast. We may concede, then, some wisdom to the 
Sybarites, who destroyed their morning heralds, the 



OF DREAMING. 207 

cocks^ that they might enjoy their matin dreams un- 
disturbed. And I remember one of Pope's allusions to 
the virtues of this virap, or morning dream : 

" What time the morn mysterious visions brings, 
While purer slumbers spread their golden wings." 

AsTR. We have often discoursed on the psychology 
of Locke^ Evelyn^ and we are now involved in one of its 
most interesting points — innate idea. Is the dreamer 
conscious of his dream? It has been asserted, espe- 
cially by two profound metaphysicians, Beattie and 
Reid, that they persuaded themselves in their dreams 
that they were dreaming, and would then attempt to 
throw themselves off a precipice ; this awoke them, and 
proved the impression a fiction. Were there not pre- 
sent in this, volition and consciousness ; and is it not an 
evidence of an innate idea without sensation ? 

Ev. No. A train of thought and passive memory 
may take place without volition, even in a waking mind ; 
a train of reasoning cannot. So feeling and passive 
thought may in the mere dream, but not a conscious 
acting on it. The phenomena, and the expressions used 
to describe these impressions, are precisely illustrative 
of another condition of sleep, to which we have not yet 
pointed. This notion of Beattie was but an echo of 
Aristotle. The Stagyrite himself was subject to dreams 
of danger, and, after a while, he used to whisper to 
himself : ^^ Don't be frightened, — this is only a dream :" 
the glaring proof that it was not ; and yet psychologists 
still talk of the management of a dream. 

The fairest explanation is, that there has been a pre- 
determination on some point, and unconscious ideas on 
the same point are elicited, or may be the first to pre- 
sent themselves to the mind in the morning, at the mo- 
ment we awaken, and thus it is the first which the judg- 
ment acts on in its reverie ; that is, the line between 

6 



208 SUBLIMITY AND IMPERFECTION 

dreaming and being awake. If there be many organs 
asleep;, there is still some clouding of this judgment ; but 
if that be asleep also^ there is an absolute dream. 

If we know that we are dreaming, the faculty of judg- 
ment cannot be inert, and the di^eam would be known to 
be a fallacy. We might, by thinking, render our dream 
what we pleased, and be sure we should never wish for 
devils or dangers. The essence of the dream is that it 
is uncontrolled : other states are not dreaming. Above 
all, if judgment influenced the dream of Beattie, who 
was not a madman, would he have wished to have 
toppled down headlong from a rock ? Listen to John- 
son on this point. '^ He related that he had once, in a 
dream, a contest of wit with some other person, and 
that he was very much mortified by imagining that his 
opponent had the better of him. Now,'^ said he, ^^ one 
may mark here the effect of sleep in weakening the 
power of reflection; for had not my judgment failed me, 
I should have seen that the wit of this supposed an- 
tagonist, by whose superiority I felt myself depressed, 
was as much furnished by me as that which I thought 
I had been uttering in my own character.^^ 

Nay, in the words of Beattie himself, in his " Essay 
on Truth,^^— 

^' Sleep ha,s a wonderful power over all our faculties. 
Sometimes we seem to have lost our moral faculty ; as 
when we dream of doing that without scruple or re- 
morse, which, when awake, we could not bear to think 
of. Sometimes memory is extinguished; as when we 
dream of conversing with our departed friends, without 
remembering any thing of their death, though it was, 
perhaps, one of the most striking incidents we had ever 
experienced, and is seldom or never out of our thoughts 
when we are awake.^^ 

Even the most sensitive and amiable girls will dream 
of committing murder, or the most awful crimes, with- 



OF DREAMING. 209 

out any sense of compunction. We feel no surprise at 
the working of our own miracles ; and we know not how 
to avoid danger. I have myself dreamed of occurrences 
long past^ as if they were of to-day ; have fretted in my 
sleep^ on ideal events^ and on waking was for a moment 
wretched. But I have reflected, awake, on these very 
events, and have not only felt resigned, but deemed 
them benefits. 

There was in the university of Gottingen the phy- 
sician Walderstein. He was a constant dreamer, and 
this is his account of one of these illusions. ^^ I dreamt 
that I was condemned to the stake, and during my exe- 
cution I was perfectly composed, and indeed reasoned 
calmly on the mode in which it was conducted ; — whis- 
pering to myself, ^ Now I am burning, and presently I 
shall be converted into a cinder.^ '' It seems that he 
was dissatisfied with his dream, on account of this apa- 
thetic calmness ; and he concludes : " I was fearful I 
should become all thought, and no feeling.^^ I would 
say, he was all illusion and no judgment. 

It is but lately that I dreamed I was reciting a meta- 
physical poem, which my vanity whispered me possessed 
a deal of merit. During the recitation I thought there 
was a turning up of noses, and of tongues into cheeks — 
a very expressive sign of incredulity and satire. At 
length a general murmur ran through the assembly 
that it was a complete " boggle.^^ Nothing daunted, I 
assured them that it was a very abstruse passage, and 
the fault was in the shallow comprehension of my 
audience. Need I add, that I should blush at such an 
evasion in my waking judgment ? 

How different also is our dream from a waking 
thought, in which we can control the fancy ! 

If in the dream the chain be abruptly broken, the 
waking mind does not then carry on the train, and if 
any thing occur in waking, associating with the dream, 



210 SUBLIMITY AND IMPERFECTION 

to join the broken link^ the dream is not completed, but 
the ideas revert^ or are retraced, to their source ; and if 
any idea at the origin of the dream be re-excited, there 
will be no consistent continuance of it beyond the dream 
itself, or, if there be, it will bear the stamp of reasoning, 
losing all connexion with the illusion. On the con- 
trary, if we read as we are falling asleep, we continue in 
the dream the subject of our study, but erroneously ; and 
if we then start and wake, we shall find that at the 
moment of slumber we had changed the integrity of our 
thinking. Be assured, then, that Virgil is correct in 
this — 

" She seems alone 
To wander in her sleep, through ways unknown, 
Guideless and dark.^' 

Cast. And now, Sir Knight, deign to look on the 
other side of the shield. * Answer me with sincerity, — 
if your words be true, is not this a high privilege of 
imaginative minds, to lift themselves out of the gloomy 
atmosphere of this world of woe ; to soar with fancy, 
not to drudge with fact ? How do I envy a romantic 
dreamer, like him of whom Master Edmund Spenser 
writes, — 

" at length, some wonted slepe doth crowne 

His new falne lids, dreames straight, tenne pound to one. 
Out steps some faery with quick motion, 
And tells him wonders of some flourie vale." 

Sleep is indeed the reality of another existence. 

Astr. So breathed the thought of Heraclitus, in 
words like these, — that ^^ all men, whilst they are awake, 
are in one common world ; but that each, when he is 
asleep, is in a world of his own.^^ The fairies are his 
boon and chosen compeers, and the sylphs are as much 
his handmaidens, as those around the toilet of Belinda. 
We are indeed the happy children, and, like them, our 



OF DREAMING. 211 

existence is a dream of felicity^ — one long and happy 
thought of the present, with no reflection or forethought 
to mar its blisses. 

Then the shades and memory of departed friends and 
lovers^ are they not around us as true and as beautiful 
as when they lived? The common sentiment of ena- 
moured dreamers is — 

" I hear thy voice in dreams upon me softly call ; 
I see thy form as when thou wert a living thing." 

In the dream, ambition is lifted to the loftiest pinna- 
cle of her high aspirings ; and power and riches are 
showered in profusion in the path of their votaries 
from the cornucopia of fancy ; and all this with a depth 
and intensity that gilds for a time the moments of wak- 
ing life. And I agree with Saint Augustine, that if we 
sleep and dream in Paradise,- our existence will be per- 
fectly felicitous. 

But then, alas ! the cruel waking from this world of 
pleasure. I have breathed many a sigh of sympathy 
with Milton^s dream of his dead wife, and with Crabbe, 
in his " World of Dreams. ^^ 

You remember, Evelyn, how oft you have wondered 
at my absence from our college coena. You thought 
not that I was then deeply studying how I might gain 
a victory over my thoughts in sleep. As my waking- 
memory would, from some indefinite cause, be re- 
excited after it had seemed to fade and die, so the sub- 
ject of my dreams has been resumed after many months, 
without any chain of relative thoughts in the interval. 
I believed then that this might be a dream ; that I had 
dreamt the same before ; but on the morning of the 
second dream, reflection assured me that on the morning 
of the first I had known and thought on it. I was 
waiting for a golden hour of inspiration, and it was 
granted me. One night came o'er my slumber a dream 

p2 



212 SUBLIMITY AND IMPERFECTION 

of beauty : there was an innocent happiness^ a sense of 
purest pleasure, that might be the beatitude of a peri 
ere she lost her place in Eden. In the morning, the 
dream was a part of my being ; I nursed it throughout 
the live-long day, and at night lay me down to slumber, 
and again with the sleep came the dream. I was thus 
the monarch of an ideal world : the dream was my life, 
so long as my thoughts were on it concentrated, and 
even study was a Rembrandt shadow on its brightness. 
In a moment of rapture, I cried, — 



We forget how superior, to mortals below. 

Is the fiction they dream to the truth which they know. 



I opened the leaf of a volume, in which an accom- 
plished pen had traced an episode so like my own, as to 
make me wonder at its truth. 

It was of a visionary German, who, like myself, com- 
manded the phantasie of sleep^s own world, bringing 
one night thus in connexion with another. He fashioned, 
like Pygmahon, his idol. Love, and nightly met and 
wooed, till he won her to his heart, and then he cried, — 
'^ What if this glorious sleep be a real life, and this 
dull waking the true repose T^ At length his ideal of 
beauty, his dream, died, stung by a serpent. And then 
the order of the vision was reversed ; the dream lay 
again before him, dead and withered ; he saw his idol 
only when he was awake, and this was to him a dream. 
He pined in thought, and died, — sleeping. 

Was not the sleep of this man his real Hfe, and a 
scene of happiness? Could he wish for reahty who 
had enjoyed such a dream ? For if in hfe there were 
equal sleep and waking, and the sleep were all a happy 
dream, this would indeed be a happy life. 

May I tell you, Evelyn, that I enjoyed a deep sub- 
limity of feeling, a consciousness of that mental eman- 



OF DREAMING. 213 

cipation which devout philosophers have more than 
glanced at ? 

Ida. Although you have again rather run wild, As- 
trophel, I agree with you in thinking that, under this 
influence, the dream may be an illustration of Plato^s 
notion, regarding the existence of eternal forms, inde- 
pendent of matter, — an emanation of the divine mind 
imparted to that of human beings ; that innate idea, if 
you will, by which the mind views at large — 

" The uncreated images of things." 

And I therefore revere the opinion of Sir Thomas 
Brown, the ingenious author of the " Religio Medici,^^ 
(with whom believed Sir Henry Wotton, Bossuet, and 
other good men,) " That we are somewhat more than 
ourselves in our sleeps, and the slumber of the body 
seems to be but the waking of the soul. It is the lega- 
tion of sense, but the liberty of reason ; and our waking 
conceptions do not match the fancies of our sleeps.^' 
And also the sentiment of Addison, that " there seems 
something in this consideration, that intimates to us a 
natural grandeur and perfection of the soul.^' 

Cast. In your temple of transcendental philosophy 
you will leave a niche for Shakspere, dearest Ida, who, 
even in one of his lightest characters, forgets not this 
perfection of our emancipated spirit. Lorenzo whispers 
to the fair Jewess, in the garden at Belmont — 

" Sit, Jessica. Look how the floor of heav'n 
Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold ! 
There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st, 
But in his motion, like an angel sings. 
Still quii-ing to the young-ey'd cherubims. 
Such harmony is m immortal souls ; 
But, whilst this muddy vesture of decay 
Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it." 



PROPHECY OF DREAMS. 



" I have heard, the spirits of the dead 
May walk again : if such things be, thy mother 
Appeared to me last night ; for ne'er was dream 
So like a waking." Winter's Tale. 



AsTR. Evelyn^ you have argued fluently on the nature 
of mind contrasted with that of matter ; but, if desired 
to define it, how will you answer ? 

Ev. That it is a combination of faculties, and their 
sympathy with the senses. But this definition presumes 
not to decide in what intimate part or texture of the 
brain is seated the essence itself, as we may imagine, of 
the mind — the principle of consciousness ; whether this 
be the '^ elementary principle^^ of Stewart, or the ^^ mo- 
mentary impression of sense or sensation^^ of Brown, or 
the ^^ something differing from sensation^' of Reid, or 
the "power of feeling that we differ from the matter 
around us^' of some one else. 

AsTR. Yet on this point, (if, indeed, such point be 
more than imaginary,) the whole phenomena of intellect 
must turn. But even if you can ever hope to deter- 
mine this locality, it will be long, very long, ere the 
student of psychology will rise from his studies, with 
the triumphant exclamation, " TcXoc !" ere he conclude 



PROPHECY OF DREAMS. 215 

his deepest researches^ without the humiliating confes- 
sion that his philosophy wears fetters. 

Yet you consider our visions as one tissue of morbid 
phenomena ; although there are myriads even of pro- 
fane visions and warning legends^ which bear the certain 
impress of a prophecy. I never listen to those who laugh 
at our interpretations^ without remembering that me- 
lancholy story of a youth of Brescia, by Boccaccio, 
where Andreana, I think, is relating to her betrothed 
Gabriello, an ominous dream of the stars, and of a sha- 
dowy demon, which had made her sad and spiritless, 
and for which she had exiled her lover for a whole night 
from her bosom. The youth smiled in scorn of such 
a presage ; but, in relating a dream of his own to illus- 
trate their fallacy, fell dead from her enfolding arms. 

For once I will grant you, merely for the sake of 
argument, that there may be exaggeration in many a 
legend. I will even yield to your immolation the host 
of specious dreams in '' Wanley^s Wonders ;^^ you may 
pass your anathema on the volumes of Glanville, and 
Moreton, and Aubrey, and Mather, and Berthogge, and 
Beaumont, as a tissue of imposture ; call them, if you 
will — 

" A prophet's or a poet's dream, 
The priestcraft of a lying world." 

/ will ensconce myself snugly behind the classic shields, 
and ask you if the pages of Pliny, of Cicero, of Socrates, 
are mere legends of fiction or credulity; nay, if the 
books of mythology and oriental legends are not many 
of them founded on real events ? 

It is clear that there was ever implicit and extensive 
faith in the East; the definition of ov upio, I speak 
the truth, implies faith in a dream. The office of 
the oneirocritic was a profession. Amphyction was 
the first (according to Pliny) of the profane expositors. 



216 PROPHECY OF DREAMS. 

Hieronymus the most profuse interpreter, and Lysima- 
chus, the grandson of Aristides, expounded dreams, for 
money, at the corners of the streets of Athens. The 
doors of Junianus Majus, the tutor of Sanagorius, and 
Alexander ab Alexandro, were besieged with dreamers 
in quest of expositions. 

The Romans worshipped with divine honours Brizo, 
the goddess of dreams ; and the Galeotce, so named from 
Galei, a Hebrew word signifying to reveal, flourished in 
Sicily. So impressed were the Jews with the import- 
ance of the dream, that they convoked a tryad of 
friends, and went through certain ceremonies, (as writes 
Josephus in his twelfth book,) which they called the 
benefaction of a dream. 

The orientals, the Greeks, and the Romans, then, 
were all confident in the truth of these omens. When 
Nestor urges his army to battle because Agamemnon 
had dreamed of such a course, it is but a picture of the 
common mind of Greece. Indeed, on great emergencies, 
it was the custom to sohcit the inspiration of the dream, 
by first performing religious rites, and then in the 
temple, (it may be of Esculapius or Serapis,) to lie 
down on the reeking skins of oxen or goats, sacrificed 
by the priests. 

I may not hope, Evelyn, to convert or alarm you, or 
I would warn you of the penalty incurred by the sHght- 
ing of a vision. You may read in Livy, that Jupiter 
imparted his displeasure at the punishment of a slave, 
during a solemn procession in the forum to Titus An- 
tinius. But Titus scorned the vision ; when, lo ! his 
son was struck dead at his feet, and his own limbs were 
at once paralyzed. In a mood of penitence, he was 
borne on a couch to the senate, and after a public con- 
fession of his crime, his limbs immediately began to 
recover their energy, and he walked to his house un- 
assisted, amidst the wonder of the people. 



PROPHECY OF DREAMS. 217 

In Cicero^s essay on "Divination/^ we read the 
story of two Arcadian travellers. On their arrival at 
Megara^ these two friends slept in different houses. In 
the night a dream came to one of them : the phantom 
of his companion appeared to him, and imparted to him 
that his landlord was about to murder him. He awoke, 
and feehng assured that the idea was but a dream, fell 
quietly again to sleep ; but then came over him a second 
dream, and again the phantom was in his chamber, and 
told him that the deed of blood was committed, that he 
was murdered ; and in the morning he learned that the 
vision was prophetic, and told him truth. 

But the records of antiquity teem with tales of fatal 
prognostics to heroes, kings, and emperors, whose 
deaths, indeed, seldom took place without a prophecy. 
From Aristotle we learn that the death of Alexander 
was foretold in a dream of Eudemius, and that of Caesar 
by his wife Calphurnia. The emperor Marius dreamed 
that he saw Attila^s bow broken, and the Hun king 
died on the same night. And Sylla (according to Ap- 
pian) died on the night succeeding that on which he 
dreamed of such a fate. 

Valerius Maximus records the death of Caius Grac- 
chus, immediately after a dream of it by his mother. 

Caracalla (as we learn from Dion Cassius) foretold his 
own assassination in a dream. 

Cyrus (writes Xenophon) dreamed of the exact mo- 
ment in which he died. 

And the death of Socrates was foretold to him in a 
dream, by a white lady, who quoted to him the 363rd 
line of Homer, in the ninth book. 

Of remarkable events there are many strange fore- 
bodings ; as the dream of Judas Maccabeus when about 
to engage the Syrian army ; of Sylla before his engage- 
ment with Marius ; of Germanicus on the night before 
his victory over Arminius (as Tacitus records) ; and of 



218 PROPHECY OF DREAMS. 

Masilienus, the general sent by the emperor Honorius 
to oppose Gildo^ and regain the possession of Africa. 
To him St. Ambrose^ the late bishop of Milan, appeared 
in a dream, and striking the ground at the scene of the 
vision thrice with his crozier, said, " Here and in this 
place ;^^ and on the same spot, the following morning, 
Gildo was conquered by Masilienus. Such are a few of 
the fatal prophecies of old. 

There are others of illustrious births in the olden 
time, of which I will recount a few. 

Plutarch writes of the dream ofAgariste, announcing 
the birth of her son Pericles. 

Sabellus, of the dream of Accia, the mother of 
Augustus. 

The splendid impostures, as I confess them, of Ma- 
homet, were ushered in by a dream of Cadiga, that the 
sun entered her house, and that his beams illumined 
every building in Mecca. 

In later days, the mother of Joan of Arc dreamed that 
she brought forth a thunderbolt ; and Arlotte, the mother 
of the Conqueror, that her intestines covered the whole 
land of Normandy. 

But I waive a host of ancient dreams, as those of 
Astyages, the last king of Media ; Ertercules, and An- 
tigonus, and Simonides, and others, for I study to be 
brief, and pass to the professors of more modern belief. 

Of Pascal PaoH, Boswell, in his account of Corsica, 
thus writes : 

^^ Having asked him one day, when some of his nobles 
were present, whether a mind so active as his was em- 
ployed even in sleep, and if he used to dream much ; 
Signor Casa Bianca said, with an air and tone which 
implied something of importance, ' Si, si sogna,^ Yes, 
he dreams. And upon my asking him to explain his 
meaning, he told me that the general had often seen in 
his dreams what afterwards came to -pass. Paoli con- 



PROPHECY OF DREAMS. 219 

firmed this by several instances. Said he, ^ I can give 
you no clear explanation of it^ — I only tell you facts. 
Sometimes I have been mistaken, but in general these 
visions have proved true. I cannot say what may be 
the agency of invisible spirits ; they certainly must 
know more than we do ; and there is nothing absurd in 
supposing that God should permit them to communi- 
cate their knowledge to us.^ " 

In Walton's life of Sir Henry Wotton, we read that his 
kinsmen, Nicholas and Thomas Wotton (whose family, 
by the by, were celebrated for their dreamings) had 
foretold their death most accurately. 

In the beginning of the 18th century, a person in the 
west of England dreamed that his friend was on a 
journey with two men, whose persons were strongly 
pictured in his dream, and that he was robbed and mur- 
dered by these companions. It chanced that in a short 
time he was about to journey with two men, the very 
prototypes of his friend's dream. His earnest caution 
against this expedition so planned was slighted, and, on 
the spot marked in the dream, was this traveller robbed 
and murdered, and by the vivid description of the 
dreamer, the two men were identified and executed. 

In other cases, the dream has been the means of re- 
tribution ; for instance, by the discovery of a murderer. 
In " Baker's Chronicle" we read of the conviction of 
Anne Waters, for the murder of her husband, through 
the circumstantial dream of a friend. 

I believe the fate of Corder was decided by a dream ; 
and I may add, that Archbishop Laud dreamed himself 
that in his greatest pomp he should sink down to 
h— 11.* 

There is a chain of impressive visions, prophetic of 
the death of Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, as if some 
little spirit were flitting to and fro on a special mission 
from the realm of shadows. 



220 PROPHECY OF DREAMS. 

The sister of the d.uke_, the Countess of Denbigh^ 
dreamed she was with him in his coach^ when the people 
gave a loud shout, and she was told it was a cry of joy 
at the dangerous illness of the duke. She had scarcely 
related her di'eam to one of her ladies^ when the bishop 
of Ely came to tell her^ her brother was murdered by 
the dagger of Felton. Shortly before this^ a Scotch no- 
bleman asked a seer from the Highlands what he 
thought of this Villiers^ Duke of Buckingham, then the 
court favourite : " He will come to naught/^ said he, 
^^ for I see a dao^o-er in his heart." 

But the most impressive presage were the visions of 
an officer of the wardrobe to the king, as related by the 
Earl of Clarendon and others. Parker had been an old 
protege of Sir George Villiers, the duke^s father. On 
a certain night, in Windsor Castle, he saw, or dreamed 
of, an apparition of Sir George Villiers, who entreated 
him to warn his son not to follow the counsels of such 
and such persons, and to avert in every way the enmity 
of the people, as he valued his life. X second and a 
third night this vision was repeated, and at the last, the 
phantom drew a dagger from his gown, and said, " This 
will end my son, and do you, Parker, prepare for death.^^ 
On a hunting morning this vision was imparted to 
Buckingham, at Lambeth Bridge, and, after the chase, 
the duke was seen to ride, in a pensive mood, to his 
motheris in Whitehall. The lady, at his departure, was 
found in an agony of tears, and when the story of the 
murder was told, she listened with an apathetic calm- 
ness, as if the brooding over the prophecy had half 
dulled her heart to the reahty. Well, the duke was 
murdered, and Parker soon after died. 

On that night when the Treasmy of Oxford was 
broken open, Sir Thomas Wotton, then in Kent, 
dreamed circumstantially of the event, and, I believe, 
named and described the burglars. 



PROPHECY OF DREAMS. 221 

A clergyman, whose name I forget, was once travel- 
ling far from his home, when he dreamed his house was 
on fire. He returned, and found his house a smoking 
ruin. 

I may here cite a very curious dreaming, which, 
though not exactly fulfilled, displayed at least a strange 
coincidence in three minds. The mother of Mr. Joseph 
Taylor dreamed of the apparition of her son, who came 
to take leave as he was going a long journey. She 
started, and said, '^ Dear son, thou art dead.^^ On the 
morrow, a letter came from his father, expressive of 
anxiety on account of this dream. The son instantly 
remembered his own dream, at the same hour, of hav- 
ing gone to his mother^s room to bid farewell. 

There are many warning visions, which, being hap- 
pily regarded, were blessed by the preservation of 
human life. 

When our own Hai'vey was passing through Dover, 
on his continental travels, he was unexpectedly detained 
for a night by the order of the governor. On the next 
day, news came that the packet, in which Harvey was 
to have sailed, was lost in a storm ; and then it came 
out, that his excellency had, on the night before his 
arrival, a phantom of the doctor passing before him, 
which besought him to detain his substance in Dover 
for a day. 

Alderman Clay, of Newark, dreamed twice that his 
house was on fire. From the second dream, he was 
induced to quit with his family ; and, soon afterwards, 
it was burned by the engines of Cromwell, which were 
bombarding the town. For this providential salvation, 
an annual sermon is preached, and bread given to the 
poor, in Newark. 

The lady of Major Griffiths dreamed thrice of her 
nephew, Mr. D. The first vision imparted his inten- 
tion of joining a party of his companions on a fishing 



222 PROPHECY OF DREAMS. 

excursion ; the second, that his boat was sinking ; the 
third, that it was actually sunk. At her entreaty, this 
gentleman was induced to remain on land ; and, in the 
evening, it was learned, that his ill-fated friends had 
been all drowned, by the swamping of the boat. 

Cast. I pr^ythee, Astrophel, draw not too largely on 
our faith ; reserve yourself for a struggle, for I see in 
the glance of Evelyn^s eye, that he has taken up your 
glove. 



MORAL CAUSES OF DREAMING. 



" I have had a dream, past the wit of man to say what dream it was. Man 
is but an ass, if he go about to expound this dream." 

Midsummer Night's Dream. 



Ev. Listen, — it is my turn to speak. 

Like confirmed insanity, the essence of the dream is 
usually a want of balance between the representative 
faculty and the judgment; being produced, directly or 
indirectly, by the excitement of a chain of ideas, rational 
or probable in parts, but rendered in different degrees 
extravagant, or illusive, by imperfect association, — as 
in the dream of the " Opium Eater :^' — " The ladies of 
Charles I.'s age danced and looked as lovely as the 
court of George IV. ; yet I knew, even in my dream, 
that they had been in the grave for nearly two cen- 
turies.^' 

The relative complexity of these combinations includes 
the two divisions of dreams, — the plain, OetjpriiuLaTtKoi ; 
and the allegorical, or images presented in their own 
form, or by similitude. 

If we grant that certain faculties or functions of the 
mind are the result of nervous influence, we can as 
readily allow that an imperfection of these manifestations 
shall be the result of derangement of equilibrium in this 



224 MORAL CAUSES OF DREAMING. 

influence^ as the material function of muscle shall be 
disturbed by primary or secondary disease about the 
brain ; of which we have daily examples among the 
spasmodic and nervous diseases of the body. 

Referring to the calculation of Cabanis^ on the falling 
to sleep of the senses^ I can readily carry on this ana- 
logy to the faculties of mind. We may suppose that 
the faculty of judgment^ as being the most important^ 
is the first to feel fatigue, and to be influenced in the 
mode which I have alluded to by slumber. It is evi- 
dent, then, that the other faculties, which are still 
awake, will be uncontrolled, and an imperfect association 
will be the result. 

Thus the ideas of a dream may be considered as a 
species of dehrium ; for the figures and situations of 
both are often of the most heterogeneous description, 
and both are ever illusive, being believed to be realities, 
and not being subject to the control of our intellect. 
Yet, if the most absurd dream be analyzed, its consti- 
tuent parts may consist either of ideas, in themselves 
not irrational, or of sensations or incidents which have 
been individually felt or witnessed. 

So the remembered faces and forms of our absent 
friends, faithful though a part of the likeness may be, 
are associated with the grossest absurdity. 

" Velut segri somnia, vanae 
Fingentur species, ut nee pes nee caput uni 
Reddatur formse." 

Or, as Dryden has written, — 

" Dreams are but interludes which Fancy makes : 
When monarch Reason sleeps, this mimic wakes ; 
Compovmds a medley of disjointed things, 
A mob of cobblers, and a court of kings. 
Light fvunes are merry, grosser fumes are sad, 
Both are the reasonable soul run mad ; 
And many monstrous forms in sleep we see. 
That neither were, nor are, nor e'er can be." 



MORAL CAUSES OF DREAMING. 225 

The little variations in the tissue of a dream are not 
rectified by judgment. So the vision may have led us 
to the very consummation of the highest hopes with 
love and beauty^ and then^ if an object even of degrada- 
tion or deformity shall cross the dream^ an association 
shall be formed imparting a feeling of loathing and 
horror. 

You may take Hobbes^ illustration, Astrophel, which 
you will probably prefer to mine. Hobbes says of the 
compositions of phantoms, '^ Water when moved at once 
by divers movements, receiveth one motion compounded 
of them all ; so it is in the brain, or spirits stirred by 
divers objects; there is composed an imagination of 
divers conceptions that appeared single to the sense ; as 
sense at one time showeth the figure of a mountain, at 
another of gold, and the imagination afterwards com- 
poses them into a golden mountain.^^ 

I believe Parkhurst also will tell you, that the He- 
brew word for dream, refers to things erroneously viewed 
by the senses ; for each may assume, individually, an 
intimate accordance with another, although the first 
and last appear perfectly incongruous, as the Chinese 
puzzle will be a chaos, if its pieces be wrongly placed ; 
2i faulty rejoining, in fact, of scenes and objects reduced 
to their constituent elements. * 

'^ I dreamed once,^^ said Professor Maass, of Halle, 
"that the pope visited me. He commanded me to 
open my desk, and he carefully examined all the papers 
it contained. While he was thus employed, a very 
sparkling diamond fell out of his triple crown into my 
desk, of which, however, neither of us took any notice. 
As soon as the pope had withdrawn, I retired to bed, 
but was soon obliged to rise on account of a thick 
smoke, the cause of which I had yet to learn. Upon 
examination, I discovered that the diamond had set fire 
to the papers in my desk, and burnt them to ashes.^' 

Q 



226 MORAL CAUSES OF DREAMING. 

This dream deserves a short analysis^ on account of 
the pecuHar circumstances which occasioned it. ^^ On 
the preceding evening/^ continues Professor Maass, ^^ I 
was visited by a friend^ with whom I had a hvely con- 
versation upon Joseph II.^s suppression of monasteries 
and convents. With this idea^ though I did not become 
conscious of it in the dream, was associated the visit 
which the pope pubhcly paid the emperor Joseph at 
Vienna, in consequence of the measures taken against 
the clergy; and, with this again, was combined, how- 
ever faintly, the representation of the visit which had 
been paid me by my friend. These two events were by 
the subreasoning faculty compounded into one, accord- 
ing to the established rule — that things which agree in 
their parts, also correspond as to the whole ; hence the 
pope^s visit was changed into a visit paid to me. The 
subreasoning faculty, then, in order to account for this 
extraordinary visit, fixed upon that which was the most 
important object in my room, namely, the desk, or 
rather the papers it contained. That a diamond fell 
out of the triple crown, was a collateral association, 
which was owing merely to the representation of the 
desk. Some days before, when opening the desk, I 
had broken the glass of my watch, which I held in my 
hand, and the fragments fell among the papers ; hence 
no farther attention was paid to the diamond, being a 
representation of a collateral series of things. But 
afterwards, the representation of the sparkling stone 
was again excited, and became the prevailing idea; 
hence it determined the succeeding association. On 
account of its similarity, it excited the representation of 
fire, with which it was confounded ; hence arose fire 
and smoke. But, in the event, the writings only were 
burnt, not the desk itself, to which, being of compara- 
tively less value, the attention was not at all directed." 

Impressions of memory may not perhaps appear con- 



MORAL CAUSES OF DREAMING. 227 

sistent with imagination^ but^ on the principle I have 
advanced^ it will be found that^ although the idea ex- 
cited by memory be consistent, these ideas may, by 
fanciful association, become imagination ; appearing, on 
superficial view, to illustrate the doctrine of innate idea. 
But is this doctrine proved? We may seem to imagine 
that which we do not remember, as a whole ; but, as a 
curve is made up of right lines, — as a mass is composed 
of an infinity of atoms, — so may it follow, that what 
is termed "innate idea,^^ if minutely divided, may be 
proved to arise from memory; made up of things, 
however minute, which we have seen or heard of. Ana- 
lysis may thus unravel many a "strange mysterious 
dream .^^ 

Ida. I have ever believed that there were incidents 
recorded, which left no doubt of the truth of innate 
idealism. Dr. Beattie has observed: "Men born blind, 
or who have lost all remembrance of light and colours, 
are as capable of invention, and dream as frequently, as 
those who see.^^ 

Ev. These, fair lady, are surely very imperfect data. 
If a person loses remembrance of individual colour, he 
does not lose the power of comparing or of judging 
variety of colour. And, again, although he may be 
congeni tally bhnd, yet if there be any other sense but 
sight, through which the mind can perceive or receive 
external impression, the objection must fail. 

There are very strange communities of the senses, 
which you may smile at, yet are they perfectly true. 

Dr. Blacklock, (who was very early in life struck 
blind,) expressed his ideas of colour, by referring to a 
peculiar sound, the two being as it were synonymous to 
him. And he fancied also, in his dreaming, that he was 
connected to other bodies by myriads of threads or rays 
of feeling. 

I may assure you, too, that on the loss of any one 
q2 



228 MORAL CAUSES OF DREAMING. 

sense^ the subsequent dreams^ after a lapse of time^ will 
not be referred to that sense. 

Dr. Darwin will supply you with very illustrative in- 
stances of this ; from which you will learn, that after 
blindness had afflicted certain persons, they never 
dreamed that they saw objects in their sleep : and a 
deaf gentleman, who had talked with his fingers for 
thirty years, invariably dreamed also of finger-speaking, 
and never alluded to any dreaming of friends having 
orally conversed with him. 

AsTR. I believe that a black colour was disagreeable 
to Cheselden^s blind boy, from the moment he saw it, 

Ev. Because, from certain laws of refraction, the 
effect was instantly painful to his eye. 

AsTR. I remember, Sir Walter Scott, in his ^^ Letters 
on Demonology and Witchcraft,^' informs us that ^^ those 
experienced in the education of the deaf and dumb find 
that their pupils, even cut off from all instruction by 
ordinary means, have been able to form, out of their 
own unassisted conjectures, some ideas of the existence 
of a Deity, and of the distinction between the soul and 
body.'' 

Ev. And do you not see, dear Astrophel, the dilemma 
of this argument ? Before the deaf and dumb pupil 
can adopt a language, by which to make his preceptor 
sensible of his thoughts or sentiments, he must have 
had certain facts or knowledge imparted to him, by signs 
or other modes of instruction. The modes of mutual 
understanding must first emanate from the tutor, and 
with these ideas may be excited, which, at first sight, 
may seem to be innate or unassisted. 

Believe not that I deny a moral consciousness of the 
existence of the Deity and of our immortality; but 
how can we prove it, in those who have no sense to 
explain it ? 

If it were possible to find a creature so wretched as to 



MORAL CAUSES OF DREAMING. 229 

be endued with no external sense from his birth, such a 
being would neither dream nor think ; he would lead the 
life almost of a zoophyte, ceasing, of course, to be a re- 
sponsible agent ! 

Caspar Hauser never dreamed, till he slept at Pro- 
fessor Daunay's, and had been introduced to intellectual 
society, and been taught ; and then, even, he could not 
comprehend the nature of his dreams. 

The arguments in the " Phaedo^' of Plato point to this 
truth, that the germ of all ideas is sown in the mind by 
the senses. So, also, the metaphysics of Kant teach 
that the senses are feelers or conductors, by which we 
obtain materials of our knowledge ; and indeed that 
matter and sensation are synonymous ; that matter ex- 
ists a priori in the mind. This was the belief of Cole- 
ridge, that there can be nothing fancied in our dreams, 
without an antecedent quasi cause, a Roman having 
written, before him, the same sentiment : — 

" Nihil in intellectu, quod non prius in sensuJ' 

Remem^ber still that this philosophy is apart from 
revelation. 

I am aware that among the deaf and dumb high 
moral sentiments may exist. But if they can read 
essays, these sentiments may be imbibed in their read- 
ing. And yet a very learned lord has asserted, that a 
being, doomed to absolute solitude and estrangement 
from, his very birth, could discover the principles of 
algebra ! At this sophism, oh shade of Epictetus ! thou 
mightest rise, to vindicate the importance of our beauti- 
ful senses ; of the eye, beyond all, that achromatic globe 
of brightest crystal, the contemplation of which first 
convinced thee of design in the Creator, and prompted 
thee to pen the first '^ Bridge water Treatise." 

On the opening, or even the restoration of a sense, 
in this forlorn ^^ plant animal," all his associations 



230 MORAL CAUSES OF DREAMING. 

would be erroneous. He would^ at first^ see double; 
he would, like children, consider all bodies, however 
distant, within his grasp ; and, like the idiot, draw all 
his figures topsy-turvy ^ as they are really painted on the 
retina, until judgment and practice rectified his error. 

I do not reason hypothetically, for these truths were 
illustrated in the youth whose pupils were opened by 
the operation of Cheselden. 

There are romantic stories, not foreign to this subject, 
in which the creation of a Caliban is almost a truth ; 
and which exemplify to us the accordance of nature 
with habit and circumstance, and the dearth of mind 
when deprived of the light of instruction. 

I allude to those unhappy creatures who, with the 
form and organs of man, have run wild in the woods, 
and fed on husks, and berries, and herded with the 
brute. We have some very curious histories of these 
beings, especially in the 17th and 18th centuries. Two 
were discovered in the Forest of Lithuania ; one in the 
Forest of Yuary, in the Pyrenees, by M. Le Roy ; two 
wild girls by a nobleman, near Chalons, in Champagne ; 
and Peter the wild boy, found by the escort of George I. 
in the woods of Hertswold, in Hanover. In these cases 
disease might have been discovered; yet the effect of 
partial civilization, even in minute points, indicates 
some power of acquiring ideas not congenital. 

But as to these dreaming flights of the spirit of good 
Sir Thomas Brown, I may confess, Astrophel, that you 
have some poets and metaphysicians, and even a few 
philosophers, on your side. You may read in Plato^s 
" Phaedo," that " the body is the prison of the soul ; 
that the soul, when it came from God, knew all ; but, 
inclosed in the body, it forgets and learns anew.^^ And 
in Seneca : 

" Corpus lioc luiimi pondus est." 



MORAL CAUSES OF DREAMING. 231 

And in Petronius : 

, " Cum prostrata sopore, 

Urget membra quies, et mens sine pondere ludit." 

This sentiment Addison has very readily adopted; 
prating about '^ the amusements of the soul when she 
is disencumbered of her machine/^ and so forth. And 
yet Addison^ I remember, thus qualifies his creed : — ^' I 
do not suppose that the soul, in these instances, is en- 
tirely loose and unfettered from the body ; it is sufficient 
if she is not so far sunk and immersed in matter, nor 
entangled and perplexed in her operations, with such 
motions of blood and spirits, as when she actuates the 
machine in its waking hours. The corporeal union is 
slackened enough to give the mind more play,^^ &c. 

In this conceit, deficient both in philosophy and 
psychology, you perceive the speculator draws in his 
horns, and concludes with that which means nothing. 
It is, indeed, a mere compromise ; an endeavour to ex- 
tricate from their perilous dilemma the metaphysical 
pathologists who talk so fluently of the diseases of the 
immaterial mind, forgetful, it would seem, of this truth 
— that which is diseased may die ; a consummation 
which would undermine the Christian faith, and blight 
the holiest hope of man — the prospect of immortality. 

And yet my Astrophel will lean to the vagaries of our 
pseudo-psychologists, who believed the dream to be the 
flight of the soul on a visit to other regions ; and its ob- 
servation of their nature and systems from actual survey. 
Of the fruits of this ethereal voyage the dreamer, I pre- 
sume, is made conscious when the soul returns to the 
brain, its earthly pabulum or home. Were this so, it 
should enjoy visions of unalloyed beatitude ; and even 
were there a limit to its excursions, a thing so pure and 
perfect would select angelic communion only. I do 
not aver that such things are not, but that we cannot 



232 MORAL CAUSES OF DREAMING. 

know it here. We have no satisfactory remembrance of 
cities and temples thus surveyed^ more gorgeous than 
the waking conceptions of the thousand and one nights ; 
or the legends of the genii ; no wonders or eccentricities 
which eclipse the exploits of Gulliver^ Peter Wilkin s. 
Friar Bacon^ or Baron Munchausen. 

Lavater carries out this caprice, by a veiy fine meta- 
physical thought, to illustrate the night-apparition. 
That it is their ^^ transportive or imaginative faculty 
that causes others to appear to us in our dreams.'^ And 
I myself was once gravely told by a visionary, that he 
dreamed, one night, of a certain old woman ; and she 
afterwards told him, that she dreamed she was, on that 
very night, in his chamber. So, you perceive, her imago, 
or material thought, entered into his mind, and caused 
his dream. 

Is not this sublime ? 

Now it is clear that these illusions cannot tend to 
advance the dignity of mind. Nothing can be more 
convincing to prove a suspension of judgment. Re- 
member that during this life, — the incorporation of 
the soul, — we are conscious of it only through the brain. 
It is not yet emancipated; and it is an error to think, 
because sometimes we have a brilliant vision, that there- 
fore, if the body were more inactive, the soul would be 
more ethereal. 

AsTR. And yet we are assured that Alexander, and 
Voltaire, and La Fontaine, and Condillac, and Tartini, 
and Franklin, and Mackenzie, and Coleridge, were wont 
to compose plans of battles, and problems, and poems, 
in then' dreams, with a degree of vigour and facihty, 
far exceeding their waking studies. 

Ev. This ver}^ facility proves that there was associa- 
tion from memory, w ithout volition or effort ; the mind 
being in a state of revey^ie, and the senses quiescent. In 
this consists the vivid and deUghtful visions lighted up 



MORAL CAUSES OF DREAMING. 233 

by our memory in slumber^ especially when there is 
darkness and silence^ so that there is no perception ; or 
when the mind is concentrated, and has been reposing, 
so that its fancy is a novelty. 

But this identifying, by Sir Thomas Brown, of reason 
and fancy, is itself a proof of error. The energy of the 
first is exercised on data ov facts ; that of the second, in 
mere hypothetic amusement. 

It were indeed much better that we established either 
the material hypothesis of Priestley, or his antipodes, 
Berkeley, — that nature was but a compound of spirits, 
ideas unfettered by matter ; or the visionary scheme of 
Hume (borrowed indeed from the Hindoo philosopher, 
Abul Fazel), that there is nought but* impression and 
idea in nature ; or even the absolute scepticism of 
Pyrrho ; — than that we should favour the rhapsody of 
Brown, that the consciousness of waking moments 
should thus deteriorate reason, and render the mind 
incompatible with sublunary duties. 

Cast. Coleridge, I beheve, was so impressed with 
his own dreaming compositions, that he said, " the 
dullest wight might be a Shakspere in his dreams.^^ 
What may he deserve for such presumption ? 

Ev. Coleridge was an opium-eater, and the whole 
intellectual life of this mighty metaphysician was a 
dream. And you may forget that Coleridge was already 
a poet, and reasons thus from impressions in his own 
visions, during the elysium of his anodyne. But the 
contrasted feelings of Coleridge^s nights at once confirm 
the monomania of his dreaming ; and if you read his 
"Pains of Sleep,^^ Castaly, you will not deem them a slight 
penalty, even for his libel on your sweet Shakspere. 

But the conclusions of three sage grave men on this 
subject will impress your belief more than mine. The 
mentor of Rasselas, Johnson himself, speaks by the hps 
of Imlac. — 



234 MORAL CAUSES OF DREAMING. 

" All power of Fancy over Reason is a degree of insa- 
nity. By degrees^ the reign of Fancy is confirmed; 
she grows first imperious^ and in time despotic. Then 
fictions begin to operate as reaUties, false opinions fasten 
upon the mind^ and life passes in dreams of rapture^ or 
of anguish.^' 

And so convinced was the learned Boerhave of this, 
that he even held imagination and judgment to have 
different localities, because this influenced the mind 
asleep, and that, awake. 

And why, Astrophel, dream we of strange things? 
Because we cannot compare illusion with reality. So 
we may reverse the doctrine of Pyrrho (who doubted 
his own existence), and imagine ourselves possessed of 
ubiquity. We may fancy we are both old and young 
at the same moment, nay, that we are and are not; 
possess the hundred eyes of Argus, or the hundred 
arms of Briareus ; that Zoroaster, and Virgil, and 
Shakspere, and ourselves, are co-existent. Indeed, our 
thoughts and actions are all modelled on a principle of 
paradox, — as wild even as the visions in the ^^ Con- 
fessions of an Opium-Eater.^^ 

Then turn to the words of Marmontel, which identify 
the wanderings of a dream with the flitting fancies of a 
mind prostrate from the effect of disorder. These words 
were written under extreme indisposition : — 

'' I was reduced so low, that I could read nothing 
but the Arabian Nights^ Entertainments ; and it is ex- 
traordinary that often, while every other faculty, judg- 
ment, the will, association, perfection, even the memory 
itself, is in a state of almost total re-action, this volatile 
thing, imagination, should be the most robust and ac- 
tive ; it seems to rejoice at the release from companion- 
ship with its fellows, and darts off on seraph-wings, 
rambles through all space, visits all places, turning, and 
tossing, and jostling all things in its progress, or con- 



MORAL CAUSES OF DREAMING. 235 

joining them in the most grotesque shapes. The ima- 
gination in madmen is often of this description ; and 
there may be 

*' A pleasure in madness, that none but madmen know." 

Then we may dream ourselves to be others, — an ideal 
transmigration ; this is error. We wake to a sense of 
our own reaHty ; this is truth. 

Cast. Yet this truth may be often withheld by 
potent impression^ as in the illusion of Rip Van Winkle^ 
and the trances of Nourjahad. I believe the waking 
mind of Caspar Hauser knew not the diiFerence between 
dream and reality ; he related his dream as fact, 

Ev. If there were ever such a being as Caspar 
Hauser, his life was a dream ; for, without the culture 
of his mind, he would be reasonless. 



ANACHRONISM AND COINCIDENCE OF 
DREAMS. 



" Rom. I dreamt a dream to night. 
Merc. And so did I. 

Rom. Well, what was yours ? 
Merc. That dreamers often lie." 

Romeo and Juliet. 



AsTR. Then we are to learn that the mind is ever 
imperfect in a dream. But^ Evelyn, is not that rather 
perfection_, which magnifies space and time a million- 
fold, completing the labours of years in a second ? The 
time occupied with the dream must be limited, often far 
short of the seeming duration of a scene. Like the 
wonderful velocity of atoms of light, the crude and 
heterogeneous ideas succeed each other with incalcula- 
ble rapidity. We appear to have travelled over a series 
of miles, or to have existed for a series of years, during 
a very minute portion of the night, — how minute it is 
perhaps impossible to determine. I believe it is the 
Opium-Eater, still, who thus confesses : — " I sometimes 
seemed to have lived for seventy or a hundred years, in 
one night; nay, sometimes, had feelings representative 
of a millennium passed in that time, or however of a 



ANACHRONISM AND COINCIDENCE OF DREAMS. 237 

duration far beyond the limits of any human expe- 
rience/^ 

This may be^ as your smile implies^ the dream of 
opium madness ; but let this dream of Lavalette^ also^ 
prove some truth in my illustration. 

The count, during his confinement, had a frightful 
dream, which he thus relates : '^ One night, while I was 
asleep, the clock of the Palais de Justice struck twelve, 
and awoke me. I heard the gate open to relieve the 
sentry, but I fell asleep again immediately. In this 
sleep I dreamed that I was standing in the Rue St. 
Honore, at the corner of the Rue de PEchelle. A 
melancholy darkness spread around me ; all was still. 
Nevertheless a low and uncertain sound soon arose. 
All of a sudden I perceived, at the bottom of the street, 
and advancing towards me, a troop of cavalry ; the men 
and horses, however, all flayed. The men held torches 
in their hands, the flames of which illumined faces with- 
out skin, and with bloody muscles. Their hollow eyes 
rolled fearfully in their large sockets; their mouths 
opened from ear to ear, and helmets of hanging flesh 
covered their hideous heads. The horses dragged along 
their own skins in the kennels, which overflowed with 
blood on both sides. Pale and dishevelled women ap- 
peared and disappeared alternately at the windows in 
dismal silence; low inarticulate groans filled the air, 
and I remained in the street alone, petrified with horror 
and deprived of strength sufficient to seek my safety by 
flight. This horrible troop continued passing in rapid 
gallop, and casting frightful looks on me. Their march, 
I thought, continued for five hours, and they were fol- 
lowed by an immense number of artillery waggons, full 
of bleeding corpses, whose limbs still quivered. A dis- 
gusting smell of blood and bitumen almost choked me. 
At length the iron gate of the prison, shutting with 
great force, awoke me again. I made my repeater strike. 



238 ANACHRONISM AND COINCIDENCE 

— it was no more than midnight, so that the horrible 
phantasmagoria had lasted no more than ten minutes ; 
that is to say, the time necessary for relieving the sentry 
and shutting the gate. The cold was severe and the 
watchword short. The next day the turnkey confirmed 
my calculations. I nevertheless do not remember one 
single event in my life, the duration of which I have 
been able more exactly to calculate .^^ 

Cast. You are modest, Astrophel. Think of the 
wonders of fairyland. Our dainty Ariel will ^^ place a 
girdle round the world in forty minutes.^^ And, even 
more wonderful still, I have read, in the '^'^ Arabian 
Tales,^^ of a monarch who immersed his head in a water 
bucket, and imagined he had in one minute traversed a 
space of infinite extent ; and (though perchance I should 
crave pardon for any thing Evelyn may term an im- 
puted miracle, or imposture, yet) for a moment listen to 
that exquisite passage in the " Spectator," which Addi- 
son pretends to have gathered from the Koran, although 
I believe there is in that book no such story. " The 
angel Gabriel took Mahomet out of his bed one morn- 
ing to give him a sight of all things in the seven heavens, 
in paradise, and in hell, which the prophet took a dis- 
tinct view of, and after having held ninety thousand 
conferences with God, was brought back again to his 
bed. All this was transacted in so small a space of 
time that Mahomet, at his return, found his bed still 
warm, and took up an earthen pitcher, which was thrown 
down at the very instant that the angel Gabriel carried 
him away, before the water ivas all spilt. ^^ 

Ev. If all the circumstances of these dreams were 
rational, I might agree with you, Astrophel ; but the 
ideas are irrational which 50 /«r outstrip the facts of our 
experience ; except in their estimation who, like the 
Hibernian, would value their watch because it went 
faster than the sun. Now the extent of velocity in the 



OF DREAMS. 239 

ideas of insane minds is equally extreme ; and, when 
these anachronisms occur in dreams, the ideas are, I 
believte, ever false. Deeply interesting, however, are 
tales of such curiosities of dreaming, as those which the 
two Scottish physicians, Abercrombie and Gregory, 
have recorded. 

^^ A gentleman dreamed that he had enlisted as a 
soldier; that he had joined his regiment ; that he had 
deserted; was apprehended and carried back to his 
regiment : that he was tried by the court-martial, con- 
demned to be shot, and was led out for execution. At 
the moment of the completion of these ceremonies, the 
guns of the platoon were fired, and at the report he 
awoke. It was clear that a loud noise, in the adjoining 
room, had both produced the dream and, almost at the 
moment, awoke the dreamer .^^ 

There was another gentleman who for some time, 
after sleeping in the damp, suffered a sense of suffoca- 
tion when slumbering in a recumbent position ; and a 
dream would then come over him, as of a skeleton which 
grasped him firmly by the throat. This dream became 
at length so distressing, that sleep was to him no bless- 
ing, but a state of torture ; and he had a centinel posted 
by his couch, with orders to awake his master when 
slumber seemed to be stealing o^er him. One night, ere 
he was awakened, he was attacked by the skeleton, and 
a long and severe conflict ensued. When fully awake, 
he remonstrated with the watcher for allowing him to 
remain so long in his dream, and, to his astonishment, 
learned that his dream had been momentary, and that 
he was awoke on the instant that he had begun to 
slumber. 

But granting your notions of dreaming perfections, 
Astrophel, there are, to a certain extent, even here, 
analogies. You forget that in our waking moments our 
ideas are often so fleet as to be profitless to our judg- 

6 



240 ANACHRONISM AND COINCIDENCE 

ment ; and why not in a dream ? In the estimation of 
distance^ with what velocity the train of reasoning passes 
through the mind ! Ere we have formed our notions of 
an object^ how instantaneous our reflections on all its 
qualities — ^its brilliancy of colour^ its apparent magni- 
tude, its form, &c., and the angle of inclination in 
regard to the axis of the eye ; and our conclusions (for 
judgment is awake) are echoes of the truth. But in the 
dream is it so ? No. We get the idea (as Mr. Locke 
has written) of time or duration by reflecting on that 
train of ideas which succeed each other in the mind. 
In waking hours the judgment clearly regulates this ; 
but in dreams this course of reflection is impeded, and 
the measurement of time is imperfect and erroneous, so 
that it is the common characteristic of a dream, that 
there is no idea of time ; the past and the future are 
equally present. 

Start not, if to strengthen this my illustration, I 
lead you again into the mad-house ; again unconsciously 
combine a dream with insanity, in quoting these ex- 
pressions of the Rev. Robert Hall (from " Greenes 
Reminiscences^^), in allusion to his first attack of mania. 
^^All my imagination has been overstretched. You, 
with the rest of my friends, tell me that I was only 
seven weeks in confinement, and the date of the year 
corresponds, so that I am bound to believe you, but 
they have appeared to me Hke seven years. My mind 
was so excited, and my imagination so lively and active, 
that more ideas passed through my mind during those 
seven weeks than in any seven years of my life. What- 
ever I had obtained from reading or reflection was 
present to me." 

Ida. The apparent anachronism of such di'eams, Eve- 
lyn, refers to imperfect function. Yet he will remember 
we are reasoning as finite beings. True, Malebranche has 
asserted, that " it is possible some creatures may think 



OF DREAMS. 241 

half an hour as long as we do a thousand years, or look 
upon that space of duration which we call a minute, as 
an hour, a week, a month, or a whole age. But in re- 
gard to the prospect of futurity, of a more perfect state, 
who of us can decide that this seeming illusion is not 
one evidence of the divine nature of mind ; a remote 
resemblance, if I may presume so to say, of one attri- 
bute of the Creator, to whom a thousand years are as 
one day?^^ 

I have learned from your own theory, Evelyn, that 
mind is either imperfect or passive in the dream. Does 
not this passive condition itself imply inspiration ? For 
is not that, in which are produced results, while itself is 
inactive, under the special influence of some high power, 
as were the visions of the holy records ? 

Although I may not yield my entire beHef in the 
fallacy of modem inspiration because it is not proved, 
yet I have not listened to your learning, Evelyn, with- 
out some leaning to the apparent truth of your disser- 
tations. I might hesitate to confess myself your pupil ; 
still, the incidents you have adduced will make me pause, 
ere I again blend profane arguments with the truths of 
holy writ. Yet I cannot yield the feeling, that the 
dream is an emblem, at least, of immortahty. 

As a beautiful illustration of such philosophy, I re- 
member (in Fulgosius) a legend told by Saint Austin 
to Enodius : — 

There was a physician of Carthage, who was a 
sceptic regarding immortality and the souFs separate 
existence. It chanced one night that Genadius dreamt 
of a beautiful city. On the second night, the youth 
who had been his guide reappeared, and asked if Gena- 
dius remembered him ; he answered, yes, and also his 
dream. ^And where,' said the apparition, ^were you 
then lying ?' ' In my bed, sleeping.' ^ And if your 
mind's eye, Genadius, surveyed a city, even while your 

R 



242 ANACHRONISM AND COINCIDENCE 

body slept, may not this pure and active spirit still live, 
and observe, and remember, even though the body may 
be shapeless or decayed within its sepulchre ?^ 

The dreams of Scripture, those "thoughts from the 
visions of night, when deep sleep came upon men,'^ 
were associated with the mission of an angel, or imme- 
diate communion with the Deity. For He has said, in 
the twelfth of Numbers, that he would '^ speak to his 
prophets in a dream :'^ from the first and self-interpret- 
ing dream of Abimelech, the visions interpreted by the 
inspired propounder Joseph, the first dream of the New 
Testament, the fulfilment of the Annunciation, the im- 
pressive trance of Peter, in coincidence with the \isions 
of the centurion, even to the holy visions of the Apoca- 
lypse. 

Indeed, the surpassing evidence and truth in all, but 
especially in the inspired interpretation of Joseph of 
the dream of Pharaoh, and those of the still more in- 
spired oneirocritic, Daniel, cannot be compared with 
aught profane. 

The prophet not only expounded, but reminded Ne- 
buchadnezzar of his dream, when he himself had for- 
gotten it. This was the result of special prayer to the 
Deity; and, remember, without this, the Chaldeans 
failed in their efibrts. Even Josephus informs us, that 
Daniel "foretold good things and pleased, so that he 
was deemed divine.^^ And you have read, that Saul 
also prayed for a dream, but he dreamt not, because he 
was not holy. And there are holy precepts regarding 
dreams, which are recorded to curb our superstitious 
reUance on all. We have assurances of true dreamers 
in the first chapter of Matthew, the second of the Acts, 
in Deuteronomy, and the thirty-fourth of Ecclesiasticus ; 
the language of the son of Sirach was, that '^ common 
dreams only serve to lift up fools.'^ With these reser- 
vations, I do believe that the real inspiration of a spirit 



OF DREAMS. 243 

is the gift only of the holy and the good ; so that the 
presumption of divination and prophecy by profane 
dreamers is an illusion ; yet, I acknowledge with John 
Wesley, that many have been converted by a dreaming 
conscience; as we read of impressive dreams, which 
have effected the conversion of others by the mere re- 
cital. Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, was a sceptic ; but, 
as we are informed by Burnet in his '^ Life and Death," 
his mind was first led to the conviction of an immaterial 
spirit, by the prophetic dream of his mother, the Lady 
de la Warre, foreboding truly his own death. 

And I must ever admire the moral wisdom of Zeno, 
which (according to Plutarch) induced him to regard a 
dream as the test of virtue ; for, if in his dream his 
heart did not recoil from vicious suggestions, there was 
an immediate necessity of self-examination and repent- 
ance. I cannot forbear adding, that there is much 
wisdom in the estimation of his vision, by one of the 
shepherd kings of Egypt, Sabaco. He dreanied that 
the tutelary deity of Thebes enjoined him to kill the 
priests of Egypt, and, for this unmerciful injunction 
from the gods, that they deemed Mm unfit for the throne, 
he went into self-exile, to Ethiopia. 

Ev. The conclusions of these morahsts from dream- 
ing impressions were somewhat straightlaced : yet your 
reflections, Ida, point to the safest mode by which we 
may reconcile the conflict of the divine and the physio- 
logist, and, above all, evince our devotion to the Creator ; 
namely, to argue on creation as we see it, and on revela- 
tion as we see it recorded. 

Yet, with a mock solemnity, dreams and apparitions 
have been first adduced as proofs of the soul's immor- 
tality ; and then, in the same argument, are themselves 
proved by this immortality ; the points of the syllogism 
are reversed, and we have petitio principii^ a begging of 
the question. 

r2 



244 ANACHRONISM AND COINCIDENCE 

This hypothesis of dreaming has formed the basis of 
certain religious impostures. Among others, of Dubri- 
cius and Comedius ; and, above all, the fanatical visions 
of Emanuel Swedenborg, who founded his especial sect, 
by the declaration of having visited Paradise. 

In our analysis of revelation, the conflict of two pow- 
erful minds might, on doctrinal points, attack, and in 
the end annihilate, the faith of each, in their struggle 
for the victory ; which may remind you of the murders 
both of Protestants and Papists, especially in Ireland, 
resulting from the wild excitement of fanaticism and 
bigotry; and the persecutions which have, as history 
records, sprung from debates on holy subjects. Re- 
member the martyrdom of the amiable and beautiful 
Anne Ascue, who was burnt at the stake for dis- 
senting from the theological tenets of Henry VIII., 
regarding the real presence. On the rack, her silence 
was a model of heroism, for she might have impeached 
the queen and her ladies ; and Wriothesly, the chan- 
cellor, it is said, in his rage to extort the secret, him- 
self stretched the wheel, so as almost to tear her body 
asunder. 

And then the blasphemy of that convocation, sum- 
moned in the reign of Mary Tudor, to renew the dis- 
cussion on that sacred point of transubstantiation, 
between the Protestants and the Romanists; — but I 
leave this topic to the mild theologian, who wiU confess 
it would have withheld a stain from the page of history, 
had these mock religionists acknowledged, with the 
pious Pascal, that ^^the sublime truths of our religion 
and the essence of the immortal spirit are inexphcable 
by the deepest research of wisdom, and are unfolded 
only by the inspired light of revelation.^^ 

Now it was clear that the dreams of the classic poets 
were not all truly prophetic; and in accordance with 
this are their delineations of the house of sleep. Indeed 



OF DREAMS. 245 

we may almost fancy^ for a moment^ that there might 
be some reahty in these poetical surveyors, until we 
reflect that the Roman notions were plagiaries from the 
Greeks. 

It is true, the locality of this Palace of Somnus, like 
the site of Troy, is not a little diversified by Homer and 
the rest ; but, whether it be Lemnos, or Ethiopia, or 
Cimmeria, these are its descriptions : 

First, of Homer, — 



Immur'd within the silent bower of sleep, 
Two portals firm the various phantoms keep : 
Of iv'ry one, whence flit, to mock the brain, 
Of winged lies a light fantastic train. 
The gate oppos'd, pellucid valves adorn. 
And columns fair incased with polish'd horn ; 
Where images of truth for passage wait. 
With visions manifest of future fate." 



And VirgiPs is a close copy. 

In the ^^ City of Dreams,^' of Lucian, the blasphemer 
(whose beauties are stained by their impieties), these 
eternal gates are again alluded to. But the dreams in 
this city are all deceivers ; for when a mortal enters the 
gates, a circle of domestic dreams in a moment unfold 
to him a budget of intelligence, which proves to be a 
tissue of lies. 

Tertullian, and many others, have argued the notion 
of a special purpose of the Deity in every dream. And 
the " New Moral World '' of the visionary Owen, 
asserts, that ^' one chief source of our knowledge is 
dreams and omens.^^ 

In the eras of inspiration, few will be sceptical 
enough to doubt the occurrence of divine mediations ; 
or not to believe, with Socrates, and other sages, in the 
divine origin of dreams and omens. 

The evidence of Holy Scripture again proves the 



246 ANACHRONISM AND COINCIDENCE 

occasion^ indeed the necessity, for such communication ; 
but, in our own time, I deem it httle less than profane- 
ness, to imagine that the Deity should indicate the 
future occurrence of common-place and trivial incidents 
through the medium of an organ, confessedly in a state 
of imperfection, at the moment when the faculties of 
mind are returning from a state of temporary suspen- 
sion, — a death-like sleep. 

Even John Wesley believed dreams to be " doubtful 
and disputable f^ and adds, with a half-profanation, — 
" they might be from God, or might not/^ 

The Emperor Constantine, you know, denounced 
death to all who dared to look seriously into the secrets 
of futurity. 

When we reflect that the proportion of events, seem- 
ingly the fulfilment of a dream, is to the myriads of 
forebodings which never come to pass (as the dreams 
recorded with some solemnity by Herodotus, of Alcibi- 
ades ; of Croesus, regarding his son Atys ; of Astyages 
and the vine ; of Cambyses, respecting Smerdis ; and of 
Hamilcar, at the siege of Syracusa ;) as a drop in the 
ocean, the fallacy of the doctrine must be evident. I 
marvel much that credulity, in this reflecting age, can 
gain a single proselyte. 

The magi of Persia and the soothsayers of Greece 
and Rome were constantly in error; and Artemidorus 
Miraldus, who in the reign of Antoninus wrote his 
voluminous book " Oneirocriticus,^^ has given us the 
most ridiculous interpretations. 

When the pagan priesthood of old lay down on the 
reeking skins of their victims to rouse the inspiration 
of their dreams, it was to cheat their proselytes. Such 
were the mummeries in the Temple of JEsculapius. 
The devotees were first purified by the " lustral water ;^^ 
and then divine visions came over them, and priest- 
esses in snowy robes, and a venerable priest in the 



OF DREAMS. 247 

habit of ^sculapius^ paraded round the altar, and the 
charm was complete. 

You may learn from Martin something about the 
modern influence of such a charm. 

'^ Mr. Alexander Cooper, present minister of North- 
uist, told me that one John Erach, in the Isle of Lewis, 
assured him that it was his fate to have been led by his 
curiosity to some who consulted this oracle, and that he 
was a night within the hide as above mentioned, during 
which time he felt and heard such terrible things that 
he could not express them ; the impression it made on 
him was such as could never go off, and he said for a 
thousand worlds he would never again be concerned in 
the like performance, for this had disordered him to a 
high degree. He confessed it ingenuously and with an 
air of great remorse, and seemed to be very penitent 
under a just sense of so great a crime : he declared this 
about five years since, and is still living in the Lewis 
for any thing I know.^' 

In imitation of this spell for the divine inspiration of 
a dream, the modern Franciscans, after the ceremony of 
mass, throw themselves on mats already consecrated by 
the slumber of some holy visionary, and with all this 
foolery, they vaunt the divine inspiration of their dream. 

Cicero, and Theophrastus, and many other sages, were 
sceptical of these special visitations, and explained ra- 
tionally dreams and divinations, as Cicero his dream at 
JEtina, on his flight from Rome. 

Then there is this anathema of Ennius : — 

"Augurs, and soothsayers, astrologers, diviners, and 
interpreters of dreams I never consult, and despise 
their vain pretence to more than human skill.^^ And 
also this caution bequeathed to you by Epictetus: 
" Never tell thy dream ; for though thou thyself mayest 
take a pleasure in telling thy dream, another will take 
no pleasure in hearing it." 



248 ANACHRONISM AND COINCIDENCE 

AsTR. Epictetus was himself a dreamer in this ; for 
the story of a dream is ever Hstened to with interest. 
And what would Epictetus think, were I to tell him 
that broad lands and mitres have been gained before 
now by the shrewd putting of a dream ? 

Ev. I confess, as in the illusion of phantoms, there 
are records of very strange coincidences in dreaming, 
which may be startling to many superficial minds. 

Pereskius, the friend of Gassiendi, after a severe 
fever, in 1609, was engaged in the study of ancient 
coins, weights, and measures. One night, he dreamed 
he met a goldsmith at Nismes, who offered him a coin of 
Julius Caesar for four cardecues. The next day this in- 
cident was repeated to him in reality. But he was a 
philosopher, and deemed it, as it was, but a rare coin- 
cidence. 

There were two sisters, who (as a learned physician 
has recorded) were sleeping together during the ill- 
ness of their brother. One of these ladies dreamed that 
her watch, an old family relic, had stopped, and, on 
waking her sister to tell of this, she was answered by 
her thus : '^ Alas ! I have worse to tell you : our bro- 
ther's breath is also stopped^ On the following night, 
the same dream was repeated to the young lady. On 
the morning after this second dream, the lady, on taking 
out the watch, which had been perfect in its movement, 
observed that it had indeed stopped, and at the same 
moment she heard her sister screaming; the brother, 
who had been till then apparently recovering, had just 
breathed his last. 

These are sequences, and not co?^sequences : and I 
might adduce a mass of these mere coincidences, which 
have been stretched and warped, to make up a pro- 
phecy. Such as the following legend of Sergius Galba, 
told by Fulgosius : '^ Galba had coquetted with two marble 
ladies, — the Fortune, at Tusculum, and the Capitoline 



OF DREAMS. 249 

Venus ; and, to adorn the neck of the first, he had pur- 
chased a brilliant diamond necklace. But the charms 
of the Venus of the Capitol prevailed over her rival, 
and the necklace was at length presented to the goddess 
of beauty. At night, the form of Fortune appeared to 
him in his sleep, upbraiding him with his falsehood, 
and telling him that he should be deprived of all the 
gifts she had lavished on him, and Galba, as the story 
goes, soon after died.^^ 

But, if dreams are essentially prophetic, why are 
they not all fulfilled ? and if one is not fulfilled, how 
know we if all will not be equally fallacious ? The ar- 
gument for the prophetic nature is merely a posteriori, 
the shallow '^ post hoc, ergo propter hoc,'' of the sophist. 
On the occurrence of any important event, all the 
auguries and dreams which bear the slightest semblance 
to a prophecy are immediately adduced, and stretched 
and warped to suit the superstition ; as the whimsical 
mother will account for the marks on her child by 
frights and longings. When we know that myriads of 
enthusiasts and hypochondriacs have, by the failure of 
their predictions, deserved the stigma of false prophets, 
we may surely class these phantasies among the popular 
errors of the time. 

Yet the fulfilment of a prophecy may be consequence ; 
and that without the imputation of falsehood or impo- 
sition, or of any special interference. (I am not recant- 
ing my opinions, Astrophel.) 

1st. Through the effect of an imparted impetus, 

2nd. Foresight, from the study of events and cha- 
racter. 

3rd. Constant thinking on one subject. 

4th. Impressions of terror or alarm, from spectres, 
sybils, &c. 

As there are dreams from impressions on the body 
during sleep, so are there diseased tissues in the brain. 



250 ANACHRONISM AND COINCIDENCE 

which Hght up phantoms of terror and death perfectly 
prophetic. But wherefore so? Merely because they 
are induced by that disease which usually terminates in 
death. Such were the dreams during the nightmare 
which preceded, and, I believe, still precede, the epi- 
demic fevers in Rome, and in those of Leyden, in 1669, 
when the patient fell asleep, and was attacked by incubus 
before each exacerbation. The impersonation of death 
was the prevailing phantom of their dream, and in 
reality death soon followed. 

Among those heathen tribes, where superstition and 
ignorance form part of a national creed, there is a de- 
gree of blindness and inconsistency that may truly be 
termed mania. It is the doctrine, not of prophecy, but 
of debased and absolute fatalism. The North American 
Indians not only regard the dream as prophetic, but 
often receive it as a solemn injunction, and are them- 
selves the active agents in its fulfilment. "^ In what- 
ever manner,^^ says Charlevoix, "the dream is con- 
ceived, it is always looked upon as a thing sacred, and 
as the most ordinary way in which the gods make known 
their will to men. Filled with this idea, they cannot 
conceive how we should pay no regard to them. For 
the most part they look upon them either as a desire of 
the soul, inspired by some genius, or an order from 
him, and, in consequence of this principle, they hold it 
a religious duty to obey them. An Indian, having 
dreamt of the amputation of his finger, had it really cut 
off as soon as he awoke, first preparing himself for this 
important action by a feast P^ 

Among more enlightened people there may be an in- 
ducement to action from the impression of a dream ; 
here, also, the consequence is the fulfilment of the pro- 
phecy. Such, Astrophel, were the dreams of Arlotte 
and Cadiga ; of Judas Maccabaeus ; of Sylla ; of Ger- 
manicus ; and of Masulenius ; and the dream of the 



OF DREAMS. 251 

priestess of Proserpine, on the eve of Timoleon's expe- 
dition from Corinth to Syracuse, that Ceres volunteered 
to be his travelling companion into Sicily. The dream 
of Olympia, that she was with child of a dragon, might 
both have suggested the mode of education, and incited 
the warlike spirit of Alexander. 

We know that the city of Carthage was rebuilt by 
Augustus Caesar, in consequence of the dream of his 
uncle Julius. 

And we read in the travels of Herbert, that Cangius, 
the blacksmith of Mount Taurus, aspired to, and gained 
dominion over the Tartars from a similar influence, and 
from his name has the title of ^^ Chan'' been since con- 
ferred on some of the most warlike monarchs of the 
East. 

There was a dream of Ertercules that was warped, by 
Edebales, into the interpretation, that Oman should be 
born to him, and become a great conqueror. 

I have known the dreams of young ladies often prove 
the inducement to their marriage. 

I may remind you, too, that even a simple waking 
incident will impart this power of action. It is a record 
of history, that Robert Bruce slept, during his wander- 
ing, in the barn of a cottage. As he was lying, he saw 
a spider attempt to climb to the roof; twelve times the 
insect failed ere it gained its point. This potent lesson 
of perseverance instantly flashed across his mind, and 
in a few days was won the field of Bannockburn. Be 
sure the seers termed this an omen. 

The seduction of Helen was the result of a dream of 
high promise, made to Paris by the phantom of Venus. 

Scott (who was executed at Jedburgh, in 1823, for 
murder) confessed that he had dreamed of such a crime 
for many years ere its committal. 

Of the result of constant dwelling on an interesting 
subject, I may add these illustrations. 



252 ANACHRONISM AND COINCIDENCE 

Antigonus^ King of Macedonia^ anticipated (according 
to Plutarch) the flight of his prisoner Mithridates to the 
Euxine. 

Of such a nature were the dreams of the Emperor 
JuHan and of Calphurnia^ if indeed these were more 
than fable ; and such was the dream of Cromwell^ — that 
he should be the greatest man in England. In all 
these^ and a thousand more, the mere constant thinking 
excited the dream. The ambitious thought of Crom- 
well was constantly haunting his waking moments, 
pointing to personal aggrandisement, and, of conse- 
quence, imparted a like character to the dream of his 
slumbers. Could we have penetrated the privacy of 
Ireton, and Lambert, and other Presbyterian leaders, 
we should discover that such ambitious prepossessions 
were not confined to the bosom of the Protector. 

The grandfather of the poet Goethe, on the death of 
an old counsellor at Frankfort, assured his wife of his 
confident belief, that the golden ball, which elected the 
vacant counsellor, would be drawn for him. And this 
belief arose from a dream ; in which he went in full 
costume to court, when the deceased counsellor rose 
from his seat and begged him to occupy the chair, and 
then went out of the door. Goethe was elected. 

And yet divines especially are determined to look 
beyond nature for causes, and refer all this to divine 
foreknowledge, imparted to the mind of man. There is 
a solemn letter, written in 1512, by Cardinal Bembo, to 
one of the Medici, recounting how he was opposed in a 
suit against one Simon Goro, by Giusto, and how his 
mother dreamed that Giusto wounded him in the right 
hand, and besought him not to have altercation with 
him. It chanced that Giusto, who, it seems, was some- 
what deranged, snatched Bembo^s papers from his 
hand, and afterwards, by the Rialto, wounded him in 
the second finger of the right hand. Now is not this a 



OF DREAMS. 253 

very shallow incident? and yet the sapient cardinal 
deems it essential to confirm his tale by a solemn attes- 
tation^ thus : " The dream of my mother I look upon 
as a revelation ; and I declare to you^ magnificent lord, 
by that veneration which we owe to God himself, that 
this recital is the pure and single truth/' 

The proofs of an apparent prophecy from foresight 
may be seen in those, who by reflection have attained 
either a worldly or a weather wisdom. The sea captain, 
who has looked out upon the sky at night, and has 
learned the foreboding signs of a storm, will often dream 
of shipwreck ; and the politician will dream of events, 
as well as predicate consequences, from an enlightened 
reflection on the motives of the human mind, and the 
general laws which indeed influence its actions. So that, 
with a little latitude, it were easy enough for us all to 
construct an almanac column, especially if there be 
granted to us a liberal allowance of ^^ more or less about 
this time.'' 

Above all, it is our duty to avert the impressions of 
evil from the superstitious mind. The apprehension of a 
misfortune or fatality may prove its cause. Ay, and if 
the intellect were really gifted with prescience, how oft 
would the happiness of life be blighted ? 

The allegory of the tree of knowledge is a practic 
precept for our lives. 

AsTR. And yet Virgil has thus alluded to the delight 
of peeping into futurity : 

" Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas.^' 

Ev. / would rather echo the benevolent precept of 
Horace, to ensure the bliss of ignorance on this point : 

" Tu ne qusesieris, scire (nefas) quern mihi, quem tibi, 
Finem Dii dederint." 

in other words : " Seek not to know the destiny that 
awaits us." 



254 ANACHRONISM AND COINCIDENCE 

And Milton^s wisdom^ too : 

" Let no man seek 
Henceforth, to be foretold what shall befall 
Him or his children : evil, he may be sure, 
Which, neither his foreknowmg can prevent ; 
And he the future evil shall, as less 
In apprehension than as substance, feel 
Grievous to bear." 

Listen to the melancholy influence of the dream and 
death of Glaphyra^ as told by Josephus : 

^^ She was married when she was a virgin to Alex- 
ander, the son of Herod, and brother of Archelaus. 
but since it fell out so that Alexander was slain by his 
father, she was married to Juba, the King of Lydia ; 
and when he was dead, and she lived in widowhood in 
Cappadocia with her father, Archelaus divorced his 
former wife Mariamne, and married her, so great was 
his affection for this Glaphyra, who during her mar- 
riage to him saw the following dream: — she thought 
she saw Alexander standing by her, at which she re- 
joiced and embraced him with great affection, but that 
he complained of her, and said to Glaphyra: ^Thou 
provest that saying to be true, which assures us that 
women are not to be trusted. Didst not thou pledge 
thy faith to me? and wast thou not married to me 
when thou wast a virgin ? and had we not children be- 
tween us ? Yet hast thou forgotten the affection I bare 
to thee out of a desire for a second husband. Nor hast 
thou been satisfied with that injury thou didst me, but 
thou hast been so bold as to procure thee a third hus- 
band, and hast been married to Archelaus — ^thy husband 
and my brother. However, I will not forget my former 
affection for thee, but will set thee free from every such 
reproachful action, and cause thee to be mine again as 
thou once wast.' When she had related this to her 



OF DREAMS. 255 

female companions^ in a few days' time she departed 
this Hfe/' 

The fatahty which coincided with the prophetic warn- 
ing of Lord Lyttelton, might well be adduced as another 
illustration^ were it not for some imputation of suicidal 
disposition in that nobleman^ which would more forcibly 
invalidate the prophetic dignity of his dream. 

I may relate another story, not remotely illustrative 
of this influence, from Brand's '^ Popular Antiquities." 
— " My friend, the late Captain Mott, R. N., used fre- 
quently to repeat an anecdote of a seaman under his 
command. This individual, who was a good sailor and 
a brave man, suffered much trouble and anxiety from 
his superstitious fears. When on the night watch, he 
would see sights and hear noises, in the rigging and the 
deep, which kept him in a perpetual fever of alarm. 
One day the poor fellow reported upon deck, that the 
devil, whom he knew by his horns and cloven feet, 
stood by the side of his hammock on the preceding 
night, and told him that he had only three days to live. 
His messmates endeavoured to remove his despondency 
by ridicule, but without effect. And the next morning 
he told the tale to Captain Mott, with this addition, 
that the fiend had paid him a second nocturnal visit, 
announcing a repetition of the melancholy tidings. The 
captain in vain expostulated with him on the folly of 
indulging such groundless apprehensions. And the 
morning of the fatal day being exceedingly stormy, the 
man, with many others, was ordered to the topmast to 
perform some duty among the rigging. Before he 
ascended, he bade his messmates farewell, telling them 
that he had received a third warning from the devil, and 
that he was confident he should be dead before night. 
He went aloft with the foreboding of evil on his mind, 
and in less than five minutes he lost his hold, fell upon 
the deck, and was killed upofi the spot." 

6 



256 ANACHRONISM AND COINCIDENCE OF DREAMS. 

Were an aversion to these gloomy fancies inculcated, 
it might avert many a fatal foreboding, which, even in 
our own enhghtened era, has closely resembled the fate 
of the African victims of Obi ; that magic fascination, 
which its Syriac namesake, Obh, works by spell, until 
the doomed one pines to death, with the deep convic- 
tion that he is under the ban of an enchanter. 



MATERIAL CAUSES OF DREAMS. 



lago. Nay, this was but his dream. 

Othello. But this denoted a foregone conclusion ; 

'Tis a shrewd doubt, tho' it be but a dream." 

Othello. 



AsTR. We looked for more from you, Evelyn, than 
these proofs of a negative, 

I presume still to think your philosophy is very weak 
in controversion of the inspiration of a dream, and its 
supernatural causes. / cannot but believe, with Baxter^ 
that dreams may be " spirits in communion with us.^^ 

Ev. And you will define these shadowless ministers 
in the fashion of Master Richard Burthogge, Medicinae 
Doctor, (in his book, printed by Raven, in the Poultry, 
in 1694.) I have a smack, you see, of medical biblio- 
mania, Astrophel. Burthogge, although one of the 
most rational interpreters of dreams and spectres, thinks 
their internal causes purely metaphysical ; and then re- 
futes his own opinion point blank by this sophistry, — 
that ^^ there are things incorporated, but invisible, which 
we call spirits ''' as who should say, with Shakspere^s 
fairies, '^ We have the gift of fern seed ; we are invi- 
sible.^' 

No ; we will account for the causes of dreams, Astro- 
phel, without the ministry of spirits. 



258 MATERIAL CAUSES OF DREAMS. 

Analyzing, then, the notions of all, it is clear that the 
essence of the dream is recurrence of ideas. In the 
words of Walpole, — " The memory retains the colour- 
ing of the day/^ 

Now memory is the first faculty to fail in age, and 
you know old people seldom dream : the same objects 
are applied, but there is little or no association, for the 
brain is dull and feeble ; imbecility, indeed, is mad 
memory. 

The two common periods associated with the dream, 
are the past and the future, involving memory and 
prognostication ; the latter being but the memory of an 
intention, — an image excited in the mind by analogy. 
Even when present sensations excite the dream, it is 
ever associated, as you remember, with something before 
seen or felt. 

The waking thought will thus again modify the 
dream ; and Dr. Abercrombie has a curious illustration 
of this combining of two minds, — one waking subject, 
one dream, and one disturbing cause. 

The French invasion was the universal topic in 
Edinburgh ; and the city was, indeed, one company of 
volunteers. It was decided that the tocsin of alarm on 
the approach of the enemy, was to be the firing of the 
castle guns, followed by a chain of signals. At two, an 
officer was awoke from a vivid dream of guns and sig- 
nals, and reviews of troops, by his lady, who herself 
was affrighted by a similar dream, with a few associa- 
tions of a different nature. And whence all this alarm ? 
— the falling of a pair of tongs on the hearth, the noise 
of which was quite sufficient for the production of their 
dreaming associations. 

AsTR. It would seem to me that Evelyn was too 
anxious to find employment for the brain, in thus im- 
puting so much to substantial causes. 

There is a funny scrap, I remember to have read, and 



MATERIAL CAUSES OF DREAMS. 259 

of which I may shrewdl}^ suspect my friend to be the 
scribbler. ^^ Whence we may compare the powers of 
mind, to a court of judicature : — the outward senses 
being as the soHcitors that bring the causes ; the com- 
mon sense^ as the master of requests, who receives all 
their informations ; and phantasy (or imagination), like 
the lawyers and advocates that bandy the business to 
and fro in several forms, with a deal of noise and bus- 
tle ; reason, as the judge, that having calmly heard each 
party^s pretensions, pronounces an upright sentence ; 
and memory, as the clerk, records the whole pro- 
ceedings/^ But say, if the dream is but the memory 
of an impression, are metaphysics to be counted as a 
cypher, in our discussion of the nature of intellect ? 

Ev. Nay, the psychologist must ever call metaphysics 
to his aid, especially when speaking of the health or 
disorder of mind : there is an intimate blending of meta- 
physics and philosophy. But believe not, Astrophel, 
that I presume to develope that mysterious influence 
which is going on between mind and matter, so essential 
to the manifestation of the former, during its earthly 
condition. The mystery will ever be a sealed letter to 
the intellect. It is enough that we have evidence of its 
existence without yearning for deeper insight of final 
causes, I have assured you that I do not believe 
thought or reflection, or any act of mind to be material, 
and speak even with all due courtesy to the abstract 
metaphysician, and the divine who, doubtless from pure 
and holy motives, would seek to cut the Gordian knot 
of this sublime enigma. 

Even Dr. Abercrombie is content with observing that 
the correction of illusions by the sane mind is by the 
comparing power of reason, but he leaves the illusion 
itself unexplained. Indeed, the most luminous of pa- 
thologists have ever feared to touch organization ; 
Sir Humphrey Davy leaves his beautiful imaginings 

s 2 



260 MATERIAL CAUSES OF DREAMS. 

vague and inconclusive^ because he stops short of the 
brain. 

The mere psychologist will ever persevere in placing 
even the palpable causes of illusion beyond the reach of 
our inquiries. 

Thus the rhapsodies of Lucretius were a series of 
professed fables, and the theories of Macrobius a tissue 
of capricious distinctions, as you may learn from his 
classification. 

1st. ovHQoc;, somnium, dream. A figurative vision to 
be interpreted. 

2nd. opajuLa, vision. A vision which has afterwards 
been exactly fulfilled. 

3rd. j(j)r\fiaTL(Tfio^, oraculum. An intimation in sleep 
of what we ought to do. 

(I suppose as the shade of Hector appeared to -^neas, 
warning him, the night before, to escape from the 
flames of Troy.) 

4th. cvuTTvfov, insomnium, A sort of night- mare. 

5th. (^tavratTfia, visus and incubus. 

Here is a perfect jumble of classification, the first 
three only being vaunted as prophetic, or inspired ; the 
fourth a night-mare ; and the fifth, if it be any thing, 
a spectral illusion. 

Others have deemed themselves mighty wise in dis- 
covering dreams to be the " action of intellect on it- 
self.'^ 

Abercrombie, the most learned analyst of the mind 
since Reid and Stewart, has four varieties of the dream : 

1st. From wrong association of new events. 

2nd. Trains of thought from bodily association. 

3rd. Revival of old associations. 

4th. Casual fulfilment of a dream ! 

You perceive the first and third are merely memory, 
with right and wrong arrangements ; the second, excite- 
ment of ideas from present sensations ; the fourth, if it 



MATERIAL CAUSES OF DREAMS. 261 

be not a mere coincidence, is the result, as I have ex- 
plained, of imparted impetus, or deep thinking on sub- 
jects presented to the mind. The eccentricities of dream- 
ing are not more curious than those of the reminiscent 
faculty when awake ; indeed, memory itself may seem to 
be sometimes dreaming, and at others eyen fast asleep. 
Those who survived the plague in Athens (as we read in 
Thucydides), lost for a time the recollection of names, 
their own and those of their friends, and did not regain 
it until their health was re-established. 

Mori, during his frequent moods of excitement, quite 
lost his memory of music, so that, for many minutes, he 
could neither read a note nor play from memory. 

There have been persons who have very suddenly 
forgotten their own names, which they were about to 
announce on a visit to a friend. 

" Mr. Von B , envoy to Madrid, and afterwards 

to Petersburg, a man of a serious turn of mind, yet by 
no means hypochondriacal, went out one morning to 
pay a number of visits. Among other houses at which 
he called, there was one where he suspected the servants 
did not know him, and where he consequently was 
under the necessity of giving in his name, but this very 
name he had at that moment entirely forgotten. Turn- 
ing round immediately to a gentleman who accompanied 
him, he said, with much earnestness, ' For God^s sake, 
tell me who I am/ The question excited laughter, but 

as Mr. Von B insisted on being answered, adding 

that he had entirely forgotten his own name, he was 
told it; upon which he finished his visit." 

The eccentric impressions of this faculty will be often 
intermittent, or marked by sudden yet regular remis- 
sions. 

There is a very curious case on record, of a lady 
whose '^memorj^ was capacious, and well stored with 
a copious stock of ideas. Unexpectedly, and without 



262 MATERIAL CAUSES OF DREAMS. 

any forewarning^ she fell into a profound sleep, which 
continued several hours beyond the ordinary term. On 
waking, she was discovered to have lost every trait of 
acquired knowledge; her memory was a blank. All 
vestiges, both of words and things, were obliterated and 
gone; it was found necessary for her to learn every 
thing again. She even acquired by new efforts the art 
of spelling, reading, writing, and calculating, and gradu- 
ally became acquainted with the persons and objects 
around, like a being for the first time brought into the 
world. In these exercises she made considerable pro- 
ficiency ; but, after a few months, another fit of somno- 
lency invaded her. On rousing from it, she found 
herself restored to the state she was in before the first 
paroxysm ; but she was wholly ignorant of every event 
and occurrence that had befallen her afterwards. The 
former condition of her existence she now calls the old 
state, and the latter the new state ; and she is as un- 
conscious of her double character as two distinct persons 
are of their respective natures. For example, in her old 
state, she possesses all her original knowledge ; in her 
new state, only what she acquired since. If a lady or 
gentleman be introduced to her in the old state, and 
vice versa (so indeed of all other matters), to know them 
satisfactorily she must learn them in both states. In 
the old state she possesses fine powers of penmanship, 
while in the new she writes a poor awkward hand, not 
having had time or means to become expert ! During 
four years and upwards, she has had periodical transi- 
tions from one of these states to the other. The alter- 
ations are always consequent upon a long and sound 
sleep. Both the lady and her family are now capable 
of conducting the affair without embarrassment; by 
simply knowing whether she is in the old or new state, 
they regulate the intercourse, and govern themselves 
accordingly!^' 



MATERIAL CAUSES OF DREAMS. 263 

Other instances are more protracted ; the impressions 
previous to a certain moment only being capable of 
reneWal. 

Mrs. S , an intelligent lady, belonging to a re- 
spectable family in the state of New York, some years 
ago undertook a piece of fine needle-work. She de- 
voted her time to it almost constantly for a number of 
days ; but before she had completed it she became sud- 
denly delirious. In this state, without experiencing any 
material abatement of her disease, she continued for 
about seven years, when her reason was suddenly re- 
stored. One of the first questions which she asked on 
this convalescence related to her needle-work. It is a 
remarkable fact that, during the long continuance of her 
delirium^ she said nothing, so far as was recollected, 
about her needle-work, nor concerning any such sub- 
jects as usually occupied her attention when in health. 

We read in Dr. Abercrombie, of a lady reduced by 
disease, in whose mind the memory of ten years was lost, 
" Her ideas were consistent with each other, but they 
referred to things as they stood before her removal (to 
Edinburgh) .^^ 

In these instances it is probable that the fault may be 
referred to the original impression, some disorder or 
state of the brain causing it to be only superficially im- 
pressed during these ten years of oblivion. 

There is a curious story in the history of the Royal 
Academy of Sciences, which Beattie has recorded in 
these words : — 

" A nobleman of Lausanne, as he was giving orders 
to a servant, suddenly lost his speech and all his senses. 
Different remedies were tried, without effect, for six 
months ; during all which time he appeared to be in a 
deep sleep or deliquium, with various symptoms at dif- 
ferent periods, which are particularly specified in the 
narration. At last, after some chirurgical operations, at 



264 MATERIAL CAUSES OF DREAMS. 

the end of six months his speech and senses were sud- 
denly restored. When he recovered^ the servant to 
whom he had been giving orders when he was first 
seized with the distemper, happening to be in the 
room, he asked whether he had executed his com- 
mission ; not being sensible, it seems, that any interval 
of time, except, perhaps, a very short one, had elapsed 
during his illness.^' 

Ida. I have read two stories of melancholy romance, 
which are not mal-a-propos to your arguments, Evelyn, 
in which the memory of one intense impression has 
^^ gone into a being,^^ influencing the current of every 
after-thought, and the mind seeming ever after uncon- 
scious of all past or present, but the incident of one 
moment. 

A gentleman, on the point of marriage, left his in- 
tended bride for a short time. He usually travelled in 
the stage-coach to the place of her abode ; but the last 
journey he took from her was the last of his life. 
Anxiously expecting his return, she went to meet the 
vehicle, when an old friend announced to her the death 
of her lover. She uttered an involuntary scream, and 
one piteous exclamation, " He is dead ?' From this 
fatal moment, iov fifty years, has this unfortunate female 
daily, in all seasons, traversed the distance of a few 
miles to the spot where she expected her future husband 
to alight from the coach, uttering, in a plaintive tone, 
" He is not come yet ; I will return to-morrow.^^ 

A young clergyman, on the eve of marriage, received 
a severe injury. During his future life of ceUbacy, 
which was protracted to the 80th year, this one idea 
only possessed his mind, that his hour of happiness was 
approaching, and to the last moment he talked of his 
marriage with all the passion of a devoted lover. 

Ev. Thanks to your own memory, Ida, for these in- 
cidents. That the possession of the faculty of this 



MATERIAL. CAUSES OF DREAMS. 265 

impression of memory can be demonstrated^ we might 
doubt^ were verbal description only employed ; but when 
we see the artist trace the features of a person long lost 
to us from memory, we know that such ideas existed, 
and were then re-excited in his mind. 

The power of the intellect in retaining these impres- 
sions is wonderful. Cyrus is said to have remembered 
the names of all his soldiers, and Themistocles those 
of two thousand Athenians. 

We have records from Seneca and others, that some 
will remember, after one perusal or hearing, very long 
poems; and even have repeated, word for word, the 
unconnected jumble of a newspaper. Pascal, as we are 
told by Locke, never forgot anything. Almost equally 
retentive was the memory of my excellent teacher. Sir 
Astley Cooper, and hence his nearly unexampled accu- 
mulation of facts. The memory of Ben Jonson was 
retentive to perfection, until the fortieth year of his 
age. In his youth, he could repeat an entire volume 
after its perusal ; nay, even the whole of his own works, 
or as he quaintly writes, " All that ever I made.^^ We 
know that Bloomfield composed his "Farmer's Boy'' 
in the bustle of a shoe manufactory, and wrote from his 
memory. 

AsTR. I have heard that the particles of the body are 
constantly changing : if so, how can memory exist in 
the brain ? 

Ev. The answer is easy. Because particles of exact 
similarity are deposited as others are removed. The 
parts thus regenerated, of whatever structure they 
may be, still being identical and unchanged in func- 
tion. 

If the dream be an inspiration, Astrophel, it is like 
" a spirit of the past," and does not " speak like sybils 
of the future." 

But ere I offer some analogies of waking memory, in 



2G6 MATERIAL CAUSES OF DREAMS. 

illustration of the causes of the dream, I must again 
fatigue you by a glance at the physiology of memory ; 
the origin or mode of impression of a sense^ and the 
mode ofrecurrence of such impression, i.e, ihe excitement 
of the dream. 

Aristotle has asserted that senses cannot receive 
material objects, but only their species, or etSwXov; 
and Mr. Locke entertained the same idea. For this 
eflfect, however, matter must have touched a sense, and 
its impression, as Baron Haller thought, must have 
been mechanical. For instance, the rays emanating 
from a body, and impinging on the retina, or an undu- 
lation of sound on the labyrinth of the ear, stamp an 
image on the brain, by which, (in accordance with a 
prior observation on illusion,) some minute change is 
inevitably effected; some minute cerebral atoms are 
displaced. 

If you propose to me that curious physiological ques- 
tion, — in what consists the function of a nerve — in os- 
cillation, or in undulation of a fluid, in electricity, or in 
magnetism ? or how the nerve carries this impression to 
the brain? or if you desire me to meet the subtle objec- 
tion, which Dr. Reid advanced against the opinion of 
Aristotle and of the more modern psychologists, — I 
might weary you with conjectures like those of Newton 
and Hartley, that some ethereal fluid was, by the im- 
pulse of peculiar stimulus to its nerve, the cause of the 
senses ; or that the mental phenomena are an imparting, 
or influence of the immaterial soul by corporeal vibra- 
tion ; or that dreams are " motions of fibres :'' and at 
length, with humility confess this to be a mystery we 
cannot yet fathom. And this I do the more willingly, 
as it may prove my devotion to the proper limits of our 
study ; moreover, the question itself is not essential to 
my argument. 

Yet it is certain that external impressions of every 



MATERIAL CAUSES OF DREAMS. 267 

object or subject, reach the brain through the medium 
of a nerve ; and when the same fibrils of those nerves, 
or that spot of brain on which the original image rested, 
are again irritated by their proper stimulus, or by the 
same or a similar body, an association is produced, and 
memory is the result. 

For the insurance of this sense of touch, and feeling, 
and perception, it is essential that the impression at 
the end of a nerve shall be perfectly transmitted along 
its course to the brain, so that the brain shall be con- 
scious, or sensible of this impression. For if a nerve be 
cut asunder, or a ligature be placed on any portion of 
it between the skin and the brain, the sensation instantly 
ceases. It is not essential, however, that the contact 
should take place at the moment of the perception ; and 
the explanation of this involves one of the most curious 
phenomena of the body^s feeling ; and, indeed, the me- 
taphysical mystery of the nature of memory, which is 
too abstruse a point to be touched by us here. After 
amputation, the patient may still complain of pain, and 
heat, and cold, in the dissevered limb-, he experiences 
the memory of a sensation; he feels, as it were, the 
ghost of his arm or leg. On the night succeeding the 
operation, the groaning patient has often cried out to 
me, with pain in the toe or finger of that limb ; and 
when he is moved or shifts his position, he will attempt 
to hold his leg, or will beg his nurse to take care that 
she does not touch or run against it. Nay, I have fre- 
quently, on asking a patient how he felt, even after the 
lapse of many months from the operation, been an- 
swered, that he was well, but had not lost the pain in 
his leg ; or that his leg or his arm were lying by his 
side, when perhaps the limb was undergoing the process 
of maceration in the dissecting-room, or the bones were 
bleached and dangling in the museum. 

The pain, or common feeling of the limb, has stamped 



268 MATERIAL CAUSES OF DREAMS. 

an image or eidolon on the brain^ which is not easily- 
effaced ; there remains an internal sensibility on this 
point of memory. If the subject be subsequently pre- 
sented to the mind by a touch at the end of the stump^ 
or even by a thought^ the idea of the limb that had lain 
dormant^ will be re-excited by that wondrous sympathy 
of brain and nerve^ and the result will be a conscious- 
ness of having once possessed^ or of having experienced 
a pain in this leg. 

And^ on this principle of the force of memory^ we 
may explain many of our excited feelings : those which 
remain after we have been wafted in a boat, or rolled 
along in a carriage, or whirled aloft in a swing ; the 
nervous impression in the brain is re-excited ere it was 
exhausted. 

Now, an image may be stamped on the brain, in a 
tumult, without our cognizance or perception, and then 
revived in slumber ; — we wake in wonder at having seen 
what we never saw or thought of before. Such is the 
dream of Lovel, in the " Antiquary ;^^ and such the 
rationale of that tale of mystery, respecting the £Q. in 
the Glasgow bank, which a dream seems certainly to 
have developed. 

And it is evident that these impressions may recur 
the easier in slumber, because there is no fresh impres- 
sion on the senses to produce confusion. But then all 
these images may be presented at one time ; so that we 
may have either a chaos, or a correct concatenation, — 
an incident, which Hobbes and other early metaphysi- 
cians confess to be inexphcable to them. 

In the words of Spurzheim, " Memory is the repro- 
duction of a perception ;" and Gall beheved that " Re- 
membrance is the faculty of recollecting that we have 
perceived impressions ; and memory, the recollection of 
the impressions themselves,^' 

I read, that Esquirol has drawn a distinction between 



MATERIAL CAUSES OF DREAMS. 2G9 

hallucination and illusion, — the first is from within, the 
second from without. The argument I have adduced 
of memory and impression, — the one at the beginning, 
the other at the end, of nerves, — will, I think, illustrate 
this perfectly. Hallucination, being internal^ is of the 
past ; illusion, external, — of the present. 

Another metaphysician, Bayle, it is clear, was not 
ignorant of the basis of phrenology, or of this difference, 
when he alludes to ^^ certain places on the brain, on 
which the image of an object, which has no real exist- 
ence out of ourselves, might be excited/^ 



INTENSE IMPRESSION.— MEMORY. 



' The dream's here still : even when I wake, it is 
Without me as within me ; not imagined, felt." 

Cymbeline. 



Ev. I believe^ then, that waking and slumbering asso- 
ciation is memory ; and I have interposed the ghmpse 
of metaphysics to break the monotony of my illustra- 
tions^ for they are not yet exhausted. 

A gentleman^ as we read in Dr. Pritchard^s work, 
was confined^ after a severe accident, for several weeks, 
and the accident was not once during this period re- 
membered by him ; but, on his convalescence, he rode 
again over the same ground, and all the circumstances 
instantly flashed across his mind. 

In their youth, Dr. Rush escorted a lady, on a holi- 
day, to see an eaglets nest. Many years afterwards, he 
was called to attend her in the acute stage of typhus ; 
and, on his entrance into her chamber, she instantly 
screamed out, " Eaglets nest V' and it is said, from this 
moment, the fever began to decline. 

We ourselves have witnessed these flashes of memory 
more than once, during the acuteness of brain fever, 
where journeys, and stories, and studies, have been re- 
newed after they had been long forgotten. 



INTENSE IMPRESSION. MEMORY. 271 

There are many romantic incidents in illustration 
which have been beautifully wrought into a poem, or 
drama, as that play of Kotzebue, written to illustrate the 
happy success of the Abbe de PEpee in France, in im- 
parting knowledge and receiving sentiments from the 
deaf and dumb. In this, the young Count Solar, by 
gestures, unfolds, step by step, his birth-place, and at 
length screams with joy, as he stands before the palace 
of his ancestors. 

Then there is the story of little Montague, who was 
decoyed by the chimney sweep. Some time after this, 
the child was engaged to clean the chimney of a man- 
sion, and, descending into a chamber, which had been 
indeed his own nursery, lay down, in his sooty clothes, 
on the quilt, and, by this happy memory, discovered 
his aristocratic birth. This is the incident which still 
enlivens the pageantry of May-day. 

These reminiscences will occur sometimes in the 
most sudden and unexpected manner. In one of the 
American journals, we are told of a clergyman, who, at 
the termination of some depressing malady, had com- 
pletely lost his memory. His mind was a blank, and 
he had, in fact, to begin the world of literature again. 
Among other of his studies was the Latin language. 
During his classical readings with his brother, he one 
day suddenly struck his head with his hand, and stated 
that he had a most peculiar feeling, and was convinced 
that he had learned all this before. 

Boerhave, in his '' Prelectiones Academic. Institut. 
Med.,^^ relates the case of a Spanish tragic writer, 
whose memory, subsequently to an acute febrile dis- 
ease, was so completely impaired, that not only the 
literature of various languages he had studied was lost 
to him, but also their elements, the alphabets. When 
even his own poetic compositions were read to him, he 
denied himself to be the author. But the most inte- 

6 



272 INTENSE IMPRESSION. MEMORY. 

resting feature of the case is this : that, on becoming 
again a votary of the Muse, his recent compositions so 
intimately resembled his original productions in style 
and sentiment, that he no longer doubted that both 
were the offspring of his own imagination. 

Even Priestley's master-mind was sometimes sleeping 
thus, being subject (to quote his own words) " to \i\\x:ii- 
\X\\i^ failures of recollection f^ so that he lost all ideas of 
things and persons, and had so forgotten his own writ- 
ings, that, on the perusal of a work, he sat himself to 
make experiments on points which he had already illus^ 
trated, but on which his mind was then a " tabula rasa.'' 

Above all, the superlative memory of Sir Walter lay 
in a deep sleep, after a severe indisposition. It is re- 
corded by Ballantyne, that when " the Bride of Lam- 
mermoor, in its printed form, was submitted to his 
perusal, he did not recognize, as his own, one single 
incident, character, or conversation it contained ; yet 
the original tradition was perfect in his mind. When 
Mrs. Arkwright, too, sung some verses of his, one even- 
ing, at Lord Francis Egerton's, the same obUvion was 
o'er his mind, and he whispered to Lockhart, ^ Capital 
words ; — ^whose are they ? Byron's, I suppose ; but / 
don't remember them.' " 

My friend^ Dr. Copland, informed me (in May, 1839) 
of a lady of fifteen. Miss D — , who, in consequence of 
extreme exhaustion from disorder, forgot all her accom- 
plishments, and had to begin her education afresh. 

The Countess of Laval had, in her childhood, been 
taught the Armorican of Lower Brittany (which is a dia- 
lect of the Welch), but had, as she believed, forgotten 
it. On attaining the adult period, this lady had an 
acute fever, and, during her delirium, she ceased to 
speak in her native language, and chattered fluently in 
the bastard Welch. 

A foreign gentleman, as we were told by Mr. Aber- 



INTENSE IMPRESSION. MEMORY. 273 

nethy, after an accident on the head, spoke French 
only, and quite forgot the English, which he had before 
this spoken very fluently. 

A Welch patient, in St. Thomases Hospital, some 
years since, having received an injury, began to speak 
in Welch, and ever after continued to do so, although 
before his accident he constantly conversed in English. 

On the contrary, we learn, from Dr. Pritchard, of a 
lady who, after a fit of apoplexy, forgot her original 
language (the English), and spoke only in French, so 
that her nurses and servants conversed with her only 
by interpreters. 

There may be a partial derangement of memory, one 
set of impressions only being erased. 

A friend of Dr. Beattie, in consequence of a blow on 
the head, lost only his attainments in Greek; and 
Professor Scarpa (whose corpus striatum was disor- 
ganised) lost only the memory of proper names. 

You may now comprehend how instantaneously ma- 
terial impressions derange and destroy memory, and its 
converse, the production of memory by material im- 
pressions, will be far less mysterious to you. 

But creatures to which the gift of intellect is not 
granted, in which innate ideas cannot arise, still evince 
the faculty of memory. It is, therefore, possible that 
fish and insects, possessing memory, dream. Of course 
the doctrines of Pythagoras, and Simonides, and the 
story of the interpretation of the language of birds by 
the vizier of Sultan Mahmoud, are mere fables, and the 
cackling of the Roman geese was accidental ; yet the 
bird does possess the memory of language, and the 
power of imparting ideas. 

Nightingales^ notes (as Bechstein has beautifully re- 
corded them) seem to me like the Mexican language, 
and to express variety of sentiments of adoration and 
love. The parrot, magpie, jackdaw, jay, starling, and 



274 INTENSE IMPRESSION. MEMORY. 

bullfinch, are prattlers ; and the exquisite little canary, 
the pupil of my friend, Mrs. H — — , the pet, indeed, 
not only of its mistress, but of statesmen and learned 
physiologists, warbled its words in purest melody. 
From Sir WiUiam Temple we learn the faculty of the 
wonderful parrot of Prince Maurice, of Nassau, at the 
Hague, that responsed almost rationally to promiscuous 
questions. Granting, then, this faculty of memory, it 
is clear the bird may dream^ and I may add one other 
quotation from the ^^ Domestic Habits of Birds,^^ in 
proof of this. 

" We have, however, heard some of these night-songs 
which were manifestly uttered while the bird was 
asleep, in the same way as we sometimes talk during 
sleep — a circumstance remarked by Dryden, who says, 

" ' The little birds in dreams their songs repeat.' 

^^ We have even observed this in a wild bird. On 
the night of the 6th April, 1811, about ten o'clock, a 
dunncock [accentor modularis) was heard in a garden to 
go through its usual song more than a dozen times very 
faintly, but distinctly enough for the species to be 
recognised.^' The night was cold and frosty, but might 
it not be that the httle musician was dreaming of sum- 
mer and sunshine ? Aristotle, indeed, proposes the 
question whether animals hatched from eggs ever 
dream. Marcgrave, in reply, expressly says, that his 
^^ parrot, Laura, often rose in the night, and prattled 
while half asleep.'' 

Among quadrupeds, it is probable that those which, 
by their half-reasoning instinct, approach nearest to the 
power of comparison, and those which, in contrast to 
the callous-hoofed, possess an acuteness of feehng, and 
therefore the nearest approximate intelligence, are the 
most prone to dream. 

Although we know nothing of the dreams of that 



INTENSE IMPRESSION. MEMORY. 275 

very learned dog^ which Leibnitz assures us he saw^ 
and which uttered an articulate language, and often 
enjoyed a chat with his master; yet, of the slumbering 
visions of the canines I have many illustrations. Vic, a 
fat terrier, was a somniloquist. She would bark, and 
laugh, and run round the room, or against tables ; the 
surest proof of somnambulism. Indeed dogs are cele- 
brated by many poets for their dreaming propensities. 
Ennius writes — 

" Et canis in somnis leporis vestigia latrat." 

And Lucretius has left us a very comprehensive 
poetical account of the dreams of brutes. 

Even Chaucer refers to these dreams ; and in the 
Hall of Branksome, 

" The stag-hound, weary with the chaee. 
Urged in dreams the forest race." 

It is probable that the dreams of brutes are very 
short. 

From simple, unassociated memory, too, springs the 
dream of the infant ; pure and innocent as the thought 
of a cherub. For delight is the common feeling of a 
dreaming child ; and when its lips are touched in sleep, 
the memory of its mother^s bosom will excite its lips 
and tongue to the congenial action of suction, though a 
fright of the previous day will change its slumbers into 
moments of terror, and it will murmur and cry in its 
dream. 

I believe it is Sir H. Wotton who lays much stress on 
the adoption of plans of education for a child, grounded 
on the discovery of its secret thoughts during its simple 
somniloquent dream. 

Cast. It is wonderful how vividly are revived in our 
dream those scenes of our early life, which our waking 
efforts could not recollect. 

t2 



276 INTENSE IMPRESSION. MEMORY. 

This did not escape Chaucer, as I remember in Dry- 
den^s version of a fable : 

" Sometimes forgotten things, long cast behind, 
Rush forward in the brain, and come to mind. 
The nurse's legends are for truths receiv'd. 
And the man dreams but what the boy beUev'd. 
Sometimes we but rehearse a former play. 
The night restores our actions done by day." 

Ev. Yet do not associate this briUiancy of infantine 
reminiscence with vigour of the thought. The brain in 
children is, as it were, like wax, easily impressible. And 
remember, the ideas of children are more resembhng the 
imperfect associations of our dreams ; the tutorage of 
our advancing mind fills it with more serious and ra- 
tional images characterized by judgment. 

The first impressions of childhood are bright as 
fancy ; so that we think in waking more of things pre- 
sent. But, in dreams of things long agone there is, 
in fact, no complete oblivion, in a healthy mind, for any 
one of our infantile impressions may chance to be 
brought to us in our dream. 

But if impression be intense, it may assimilate that of 
childhood, and become as permanent. My friend. Dr. 
Uwins, told me of a patient who, in a joke, once 
amused himself by throwing stones at the gibbeted 
pirates on the bank of the Thames. An epileptic ten- 
dency succeeded ; and ever after this, his dreams were 
of gibbets and chains, and to that degree, that his judg- 
ment and philosophy were powerless in controlling his 
fears. 

And in the book of the Prussian, Greding, we read of 
J. C. v., a youth, who, in his eighth year, had been at- 
tacked by a dog. His future, and, indeed, nightly 
dreams, were of this creature, and these so intense, as 
to reduce his health to a very low degree. 

Now it is easy to believe the period of slumber so 



INTENSE IMPRESSION. MEMORY. 277 

limited^ that the subject of reflection shall not have dis- 
appeared, that the thought had scarcely time to cool : 

" Lateat scintillula forsan." 

Thus Moses Mendelssohn had all the sounds, heard \ 
during the day, reverberating in his slumbering mind. \^ 

Or we may suppose, that the idea last imprinted on 
the mind, or by which it had been exclusively occupied, 
and the thoughts which are so much modified by our 
temperament, study, and contemplation, would be the 
first to influence as the mind awakened, ere the image of 
fresh objects had been again perceived. 

Sir Walter, in his diary, thus writes : ^^ When I had 
in former times to fill up a passage in a poem, it was 
always w^hen I first opened my eyes that the desired 
ideas thronged upon me. I am in the habit of relying 
upon it, and saying to myself when I am at a loss, 
^ Never mind, we shall have it all at seven o'clock to- 
morrow morning.' " 

Warton, the professor of poetry at Oxford, after par- 
taking of a Sunday dinner with a friend, repaired to his 
service at his Church. On his way, he was powerfully 
saluted with a cry of '^ Live mackarel." He slumbered 
in his pulpit during the singing of the psalm, and, on 
the organ ceasing, he arose, half awake, and instead of 
his solemn prayer, cried with a loud voice, ^^ All aUve, 
all alive oh !" 

I remember the storytellers in the coffee-houses at 
Aleppo, as if aware of this last impression, used to run 
out when they perceived they had excited a deep in- 
terest. 

Ida. It is curious to hear, even by your own quota- 
tions, Evelyn, that poets have so revelled in the luxury 
of dreams, from Homer to Pope, chiefly employing 
them, however, as the materiel of their poesy. Have 
they condescended to glance at their causes ? 



27S INTENSE IMPRESSION. MEMORY. 

Ev. Lucretius, Claudian, George Stepney, Dryden, 
and a few others. Apropos as to causes. 

In the "Anatomy of Melancholy" we have the fol- 
lowing quaint summary : ^^ As Tully notes, for the most 
part our speeches in the daytime cause our phantasy to 
work upon the like in our sleep, so do men dream on 
such subjects they thought on last : 

" * Somnia quae mentes ludunt volitantibus umbris. 
Nee delubra deum nee ab sethere numina mittunt, 
Sed sibi quisque facit/ " &e. 

For that cause, when Ptolemy, king of Egypt, had 
posed the seventy interpreters in order, and asked the 
nineteenth man what would make one sleep quietly in 
the night, he told him '' the best way was to have divine 
and celestial meditations, and to use honest actions in 
the daytime." Lod. Vives wonders how schoolmen 
could sleep quietly and were not terrified in the night, 
they had such monstrous questions and thought of such 
terrible matters all day long. They had need amongst 
the rest to sacrifice to god Morpheus, whom Philostratus 
paints in a white and black coat, mth a horn, and ivory 
box full of dreams of the same colours, to signify good 
and bad." 

Cast. These are the manufacture, I presume, of two 
of those sons of sleep, born to him by a beautiful but 
erring grace, " Phantasus," or Fancy, and " Phobetor," 
or Terror. With the relations and illustrations of these 
good and bad dreams, the pages of both fiction and 
authentic history abound : another poetical batch of 
causes, Ida. Lucia exclaims : 

" Sweet are the slumbers of the virtuous man, 
Oh Marcia ! I have seen thy godhke father — 
A kmd refreshing sleep is fallen upon him. 
I saw him stretch'd at ease, his fancy lost 
In pleasing dreams. As I drew near his couch, 
He smil'd, and cried : * Caesar, thou cans't not hurt me.' " 



INTENSE IMPRESSION. MEMORY. 279 

Another poet writes thus : 

' " But most we mai'k the wonders of her reign, 

When sleep has lock'd the senses in her chain : 
When sober judgment has his throne resign'd, 
She smiles away the chaos of the mind ; 
And, as warm fancy's bright elysium glows, 
From her each image springs, each colour flows. 
She is the sacred guest, th' immortal friend ; 
Oft seen o'er sleeping imiocence to bend. 
In that dead hour of night, to sUence giv'n, 
Whispering seraphic visions of her heav'n." 

Then Richmond exclaims : '^ My heart is very jocund 
in the remembrance of so fair a dream.^' While the 
coward conscience of Richard thus speaks : 

" By the apostle Paul, shadows to-night 
Have struck more terror to the soul of Richard, 
Than could the substance of ten thousand soldiers." 

Aufidius thus recounts his slumbering memory of the 
prowess of Coriolanus : 

" This happy Roman, this proud Marcius, haunts me. 
Each troubled night, when slaves and captives sleep, 
Forgetful of their chains, I in my dreams 
Anew am vanquish'd ; and beneath his sword 
With horror sinking, feel a tenfold death — 
The death of honour." 

And yet another : 

" Tho' thy slumber may be deep, 
Yet thy spirit shall not sleep. 
There are shades that will not vanish ; 
There are thoughts thou canst not banish." 

And, lastly, Crabbe, in his " World of Dreams v" 

" That female fiend, why is she there I 
Alas ! I know her. Oh, begone ! 



280 INTENSE IMPRESSION. MEMORY. 

Why is that tainted bosom bare ? 
Why fixed on me that eye of stone ? 
Why have they left us thus alone ? 
I saw the deed " 

AsTR. You will drown us in a flood of Helicon^ fair 
lady, if you thus dole out the thoughts of these maudlin 
poets. The records of national and domestic history, 
the dreams of the conqueror of thousands, and of the 
midnight assassin, are replete with incidents, if we will 
search for them, more impressive, ay, and more roman- 
tic, than all this rhyming ; and from the legends of his- 
tory alone I could select a legion of di'eaming mysteries, 
which would dissolve all these fine-spun theories of 
Evelyn, regarding the essence, as he terms it, of the 
dream. He must adopt a clearer course, in showing us 
his causes, than by harping on this favourite theme of 
memory; and we must hsten through another moon- 
light, ere we be made wiser, by the unfolding of this 
grand secret of visions. 



INFLUENCE OF DARK BLOOD IN THE 
BRAIN. 



" I talk of dreams, 
Which are the children of an idle brain." 

Romeo and Juliet. 



Ev. That I may explain to you the predisposition of a 
dream^ — in other words^ the state of broken slumber, — 
it is essential that I recur to the physiology of the 
brain ; and I must humble our pride^ by combining 
some of the debasing conditions of our nature, as in- 
fluential on the divine mind, through the medium of its 
chambers of marrow ; for to the intimate condition and 
function of the brain and its nerves, and its contained 
blood, we must chiefly look for elucidation of the phy- 
sical causes of a dream. 

Yet I may even grant you, for an argument, Astro- 
phel, the flight of an immortal spirit, and all the amiable 
vagaries of Sir Thomas Brown ; reserving to myself to 
prove at what moment we become conscious of this 
flight. 

" In natural actions, there are ever three requisites, like 
the points of a syllogism : 

1 . A susceptibility of influence ; 

2. The influence itself ; 

3. The effect of this influence : 



282 INFLUENCE OF DARK BLOOD 

And these I call the predisposing^ the exciting, and 
the proximate causes. 

1. The brain is brought to this susceptibiHty by ex- 

cited temperament, study, intense and undivided 
thought ; in short, by any intense impression. 

2. The influence or excitement is applied ; congestion 

of blood producing impression on extremities, or 
origin of a nerve, at the period of departing or 
returning consciousness. At these periods, the 
blood changes, and I believe, as it changes, the 
phenomena of mind, as in the waking state, 
obey these changes : — rational and light dreams 
being the effect of circulation of scarlet blood ; 
dull and reasonless visions and ^^ night-mare,^^ 
that of crimson, or black blood. 

3. The effect of this influence is recurrence of idea, 

memory, — more or less erroneously associated, 
as the blood approximates to the black or scarlet 
state, or as the brain itself is constituted. 

Now it is essential to the perfect function of the 
brain, not only that it shall have a due supply of blood, 
but that this blood shall be of that quality we term oxy- 
genated. If there be a simple deficiency of this scarlet 
blood, a state of sound undisturbed sleep will ensue 
(slightly analogous to the condition of syncope, or faint- 
ing). This may be the consequence of any indirect 
impression, or the natural indication of that direct debi- 
lity, which we witness in early infancy, and in the 
"second childishness and mere oblivion ^^ of old age. 
But this deficiency of arterial blood may be depending 
on a more positive cause, venous congestion, impeding 
its flow ; for in sleep, the breathing being slower, the 
blood becomes essentially darker. Even arterial blood 
itself will become to a certain degree carbonized, by 
lentor, or stagnation. Venous congestion and diminu- 



IN THE BRAIN. 283 

tion of arterial circulation are not incompatible ; indeed^ 
Dr. Abercrombie reasons very ably on their relative 
nature^ implying the necessity of some remora of venous 
circulation to supply that want or vacuum which the 
brain would otherwise experience from the deficiency 
of the current in the arterial system. Thus will the 
languid arterial circulation of the brain, which causes 
sleep in the first instance, produce, secondarily, that 
congestion of blood in the veins and sinuses, which 
shall reduce it to disturbed slumber, and excite the 
dream. May we not account, on this principle, for the 
difficulty which many persons experience in falling into 
a second slumber, when they have been disturbed in the 
first ? 

Ida. Combe, I believe, observed, through a hole in a 
fractured skull, that the brain was elevated during an 
apparent dream. 

Ev. This is a matter of frequent observation with us. 
There was, in 1821, at Montpelier, a woman who had 
lost part of the skull, and the brain and its membranes 
lay bare. When she was in deep sleep, the brain lay 
in the skull almost motionless ; when she was dreaming, 
it became elevated ; and when her dreams (proved by 
her relating them when awake) were on vivid or ani- 
mating subjects, but especially when she was awake, the 
brain was protruded through the cranial aperture, 

Blumenbach states that he, himself, witnessed in one 
person a sinking of the brain, whenever he was asleep, 
and a swelling with blood when he awoke. David 
Hartley, therefore, may be half right and half wrong 
when he imputes dreams to an impediment to the flow 
of blood, a collapse of the ventricles, and a diminished 
quantity of their contained serum. 

We thus have not only a deficiency o^ proper stimulus, 
but a deleterious condition of the blood, which acts as a 
poison to the brain. In fatal cases of coma and de- 



284 INFLUENCE OF DARK BLOOD 

lirium^ we observe deep red points, chiefly in the cine- 
ritious part of the brain, from this congestion of its 
vessels. Sound sleep is thus prevented, but the con- 
gestion of carbonized blood acting as a sort of narcotic, 
depresses the energy of the brain so far as to prevent 
waking, inducing that middle state, drowsiness or slum- 
ber ; so that sleep may thus depend on congestion /rom 
exhaustion ; and " spectral illusion" from congestion in 
that state short of slumber ; and insanity itself from con- 
gestion still more copious and permanent. 

From this results a disturbed condition of the brain ; 
it is irritated, not excited, by its healthy or proper 
stimulus ; and it follows that such derangement of the 
manifestations of mind ensues as we term a dream. 
Waking, however, soon takes place, and the blood is 
more scarlet, and the faculties themselves gradually 
awake. As this is more perfect, we remember the 
dream, and are enabled to explain it, and know that it 
was a dream. The mind is now restored, so that scarlet 
blood "indicates healthy thought, and black blood its re- 
verse. Your pardon for this prolixity and dulness. 
The healthy or unhealthy crisis of the blood is a most 
important subject in our argument, and too constantly 
slighted in the question of illusion. 

Monsieur Denis records the story of a young man of 
Paris, in the 17th century, who was cured of a stubborn 
and protracted lethargy, by the transfusion of the 
arterial blood of a lamb ; and another of a recovery from 
madness, by that of the arterial blood of a calf, and 
these in presence of men both of scieyice and high 
quality. 

I do not affirm my implicit faith in this statement, of 
the effect of gentle blood, but I am certain of the 
poisonous influence of that of another quality ; and I will 
cite a passage from Hoffman, the German poet, whom 
Monsieur Poupon, in his " Illustrations of Phrenology," 



IN THE BRAIN. 285 

adduces as a specimen of marvellousness, ere I offer 
my cases. 

^^Why do my thoughts^ whether I am awake or 
asleep, always tend, in spite of all my efforts, to the 
gloomy subject of insanity ? It seems to me as if I felt 
my disordered ideas escaping from my mind, like hot 
blood from a wounded vein.'' 

This was figurative, but it was true ; for of itself this 
black blood may be suddenly the cause of furious and 
fatal mania. When Dionis, in his " Cours d^Operations 
de Chirurgie,^^ is referring to that operation that has 
lately, by its revival, occupied so much of the attention 
of the medical world (the process of transfusion) he 
says : ^^ La fin funeste de ces malheureuses victimes de 
la nouveaute, detruisit, en un jour, les hautes idees 
quails avoient con9ues ; ils devinrent foux, furieux, et 
moururent ensuite.'' 

The relief of the brain, by the escape of this blood, 
is of deeper interest to science than the mere romancer 
may imagine. 

Sir Samuel Romilly was for a moment, I believe, in 
a state of sanity, when blood had flowed from the di- 
vided vessels of his throat ; for he attempted, it appeared, 
to stop its flow by thrusting the towel with some force 
into the wound. 

So diseases of the heart, by keeping the black blood 
in the brain, predispose to dreaming. During the age 
of terror in France, organic diseases of the heart and 
cases of mania were most prevalent. 

I may for a moment indulge in analogies regarding 
this arrest of the blood. Cases of inflammation of the 
ear are often seen in confirmed maniacs (the helix being 
usually the part most inflamed), and black blood often 
oozes from the part. 

M. Calmeil considers chronic phlegmasia of the brain 
as the cause of insanity, the derangement itself being. 



286 INFLUENCE OF DARK BLOOD 

as it were, the moral result or disease, and the or- 
ganic changes or proximate cause the physical disease ; 
both being but the sequel(B, or consequence of inflam- 
mation. 

A boy, the servant of a medical friend (Mr. A ), 

was, some years ago, placed under my care for fever, 
with delirium. About the acme of his disorder the im- 
petuosity of the blood in the vessels of the head was 
such as to project his ears prominently forwards, like 
those of a satyr, or, as the gossips thought, rather of a 
demon. Yet all this subsided as the fever waned. 

Yet, believe me, I draw a decided distinction between 
mania and dreaming ; though the phenomena may some- 
times bear resemblance. In one essential point they 
differ ; that the transient illusion is not manifested, ex- 
cept during slumber, or a state closely analogous to it, 
when the senses are languid, or asleep. It is true, 
however, the maniac will, on his recovery, often dream 
of the subject of his insanity, yet insanity is more exem- 
plified by action, the dream being usually passive. 

The predisposition to insanity is often, too, hereditary, 
so that the slightest moral influence, imperceptible per- 
haps to the physician, may incite such a mind to mad- 
ness ; for where there is no predisposition, that is, a 
perfect integrity of brain, a right judgment is evinced 
even under the potent influence of the passions. 

As the condition of insanity, so the illusive vision, 
does not always primarily depend on medullary disease ; 
there are primary moral as well as physical causes. But 
even the exertion of thought, which the ultra spiritualist 
may term an immaterial faculty, is attended by in- 
creased action on the matter of the brain. The organ 
of mind will, if diseased, (though not always,) produce 
deranged actions. Yet it is equally true, if even a 
sound brain be badly instructed, and its passion un- 
controlled, insanity may ensue ; not however without 



IN THE BRAIN. 287 

quickly, I believe immediately, inducing structural 
change. 

On one point, the dream and insanity are often alike ; 
they are mental fulfilments of a wish : and the dreamer, 
during his slumber, and the madman throughout his 
derangement, are presented with the spectra of their 
desires, and their hopes and fears become, /or these 
periods, reality. 

It was with a reference to the wanderings of the 
understanding in dreams, that Sir James Mackintosh 
thus writes in a letter to Robert Hall : 

^^ These will familiarise your mind to consider its 
other aberrations as only more rare than sleep and 
dreams, and, in process of time, they will cease to ap- 
pear to you much more horrible.^^ 

AsTR. And pray, Evelyn, how doth all this profound 
prosing affect the subject of dreams ? 

Ev. By similitude. I may even remind you with 
devout veneration, of the dreams of a prophet, to prove 
the brain highly sensitive when these visions are before 
it. Listen to the words of Daniel, to whom '^ God 
gave knowledge and skill in all learning and wisdom.^^ 

^^ I, Daniel, was grieved in my spirit, in the midst 
of my body, and the visions of my head troubled 
me." 

" And I, Daniel, fainted and was sick certain days.^' 

Even here, may we not believe, that the Creator did 
not alter his law ? 

It was Dr. CuUen who first drew a parallel between 
insanity and dreams. As some proof of his insight, we 
read in Lode of a man who never dreamed until he fell 
into a fever in the twenty-fifth year ; — in Beattie, of a 
young friend who never dreamt unless his health was 
deranged. 

And Mr. Locke thus writes : ^' I once knew a man 
who was bred a scholar, and had no bad memory, who 



288 INFLUENCE OF DARK BLOOD 

told me that lie had never dreamed in his life until he 
had fever." 

This immunity from dreams is also most marked in 
savages^ unless during disorder or at the dying moment. 
UUoa, Humboldt^ and La Condamine, all agree as to 
the character of indolence and absence of thought and 
fancy in the native Americans^ and it is as sure that 
they seldom dream. 

Now whatever influence tends to arrest or derange 
the upper circulation of the blood in its return to the 
heart, or to detain it in the vessels of the brain, or which 
presses on an important nerve, so as to disturb the func- 
tion of the brain or spinal cord, by continuous sympathy, 
may be the remote cause of the phenomena of dreaming. 

Such are the results of repletion, dyspepsia, the 
supine position, &c. &c. 

And here, Astrophel, I meet your metaphysician. 

Galen, and indeed the ancients generally, attributed 
dreams chiefly to indigestion ; but referred then imme- 
diate excitement to fumes and vapours, instead of to 
nervous influence, or cerebral congestion from inter- 
rupted circulation. 

Cast. And here, Evelyn, courtesy might have 
prompted you to meet my poets. Let me see, is it not 
Dryden who writes of — 

'' rising fumes of iindigested food. 

And noxious humours that disturb the blood ?" 

And in a poem believed to have been written by 
Chaucer, there is this pasaage : can I remember his 
quaintness ? 

" I supposed yt to have been some noxiall fantasy, 
As fallyth in dremes, in parties of the nyght, 
Which Cometh of joy or grievous malady ; 
Or of robuste metes which causeth grete myght ; 
Overmoche replet obscuryth the syght 



( 



IN THE BRAIN. 289 

Of natural reasonne, and causyth idyll thowght, 
Makyth the body hevy where hyt was lyght." 

And again, in the tale of the " Nonnes Freest :'^ 

" Swevenes (dreams) engendren of repletions, 
And oft of fume and of complexions. 
When humours ben to habundant in a wight. 
Of other humours cou'd I telle also. 
That werken many a man in slepe moch wo," &c. 

Ev. I sit reproved, fair lady. Herodotus also says, 
the Atlantes never dream ; which Montaigne refers to 
their never eating anything which has died of itself. 
And Burton thus sums up his precepts of prevention : 

"Against fearful and troublesome dreams, incubus, 
and inconveniences wherewith melancholy men are mo- 
lested, the best remedy is to eat a light supper and of 
such meats as are easie of digestion, no hare, venison, 
beef, &c. ; not to lie on his back,^^ &c. 

Dryden, to ensure his brilliant visions of poesy, ate 
raw flesh ; and Mrs. Radcliffe, I am told, adopted the 
same plan. We know that green tea and coffee, if we 
do sleep, induce dreaming ; and Baptista Porta, for pro- 
curing quiet rest and pleasing dreams, swallowed horse- 
tongue after supper. 

Indigestion, and that condition which is termed a 
weak or irritable stomach, constitute a most fruitful 
source of visions. The immediate or direct influence of 
repletion, in totally altering the sensations and the dis- 
position in waking moments, is a proof of its power to 
derange the circulation of the brain and the mental 
faculties in sleep. 

" Somnus ut sit levis, sit tibi ccena brevis." 

The influence of the great sympathetic nerve in this 
respect is very important. With many persons, a meal 

u 



290 INFLUENCE OF DARK BLOOD 

is usually followed by feelings of depression^ impaired 
memoiy, unusual timidity, despondency, and other illu- 
sive characteristics of hysteria and hypochondriasis. And 
events will appear of the greatest moment, which, after 
the lapse of some hours, will be considered mere trifles. 
So that, after all, there is some truth in the idea of that 
archcBus, or great spirit, asserted, by Van Helmont, to 
sit at the cardia of the stomach, and regulate almost all 
the other organs. 

The posture of supination will unavoidably induce 
that increased flow of blood to the brain which, under 
certain states of this fluid, is so essential to the pro- 
duction of brilliant waking thoughts ; an end, indeed, 
attained so often by another mode — the swallowing of 
opium. 

A gentleman of high attainment was constantly 
haunted by a spectre when he retired to rest, which 
seemed to attempt his life. When he raised himself in 
bed, the phantom vanished, but reappeared as he resumed 
the recumbent posture. 

Some persons always retire to bed when they wish to 
think ; and it is well known that Pope was often wont 
to ring for pens, ink, and paper, in the night, at Lord 
BoUngbroke^s, that he might record, ere it was lost, 
that most sublime or fanciful poesy which flashed 
through his brain as he lay in bed. Such, also, was the 
propensity of Margaret, Duchess of Newcastle, who 
(according to Gibber, or rather Shell, the real author of 
the '^ Lives of the Poets") " kept a great many young 
ladies about her person, who occasionally wrote what 
she dictated. Some of them slept in a room contiguous 
to that in which her grace lay, and were ready, at the 
call of her bell, to rise any hour of the night to write 
down her conceptions, lest they should escape her 
memory." 

Henricus ab Heeres (in his " Obs. Med.") says, that 



IN THE BRAIN. 291 

when he was a professor^ he used to rise in the night, 
open his desk, compose much, shut his desk, and again 
to bed. On his waking he was conscious of nothing 
but the happy result of his compositions. 

The engineer, Brindley, even retired to bed for a day 
or two, when he was reflecting on a grand or scientific 
project. 

I deny not that the darkness or stillness of night 
may have had some influence during this inspiration. I 
may also allow that some few individuals compose best 
while they are walking ; but this peripatetic exertion is 
calculated, itself, to produce what we term determination 
of blood to the head. I have heard of a most remark- 
able instance of the power of position in influencing 
mental energy, in a German student, who was accus- 
tomed to study and compose with his head on the 
ground and his feet elevated, and resting against the 
wall. 

And this is the fragment of a passage from Tissot, on 
the subject of monomania: 

" Nous avons vu etudier dans cette academic 

il n'y a pas long-tems, un jeune homme de merite, 
qui s'etant mis dans la tete, de decouvrir la quadrature du 
circle, est mort, fou, a Fhotel Dieu, a Paris. '^ 

You will smile when I tell you that the tints of the 
landscape are brighter to our eyes if we reverse the posi- 
tion of the head. 

And now, with your leave, gentle ladies, I will bring 
phrenology to my aid. 

If we assume that there may be distinct portions of 
the brain, organs of comparison, individuality, cau- 
sality, &c., we naturally regard them as the source of 
that combined faculty which we denominate judgment. 
We might argue, that if these organs were permanently 
deficient, fatuity, or, at least, extreme folly, would be 
the result. By parity of reasoning we might infer, 

u2 



292 INFLUENCE OF DARK BLOOD 

that if the function of such organs were for a time sus- 
pended, imagination^ having lost its mentor^ would^ as 
it were^ run wild^ and an extravagant dream^ granting 
an excitement, would be the result. If the organ of 
colour be excited, and form be asleep, we may have an 
eccentric drawing. If language and imagination are 
both awake, a poem or romance ; so it may chance, that 
if all the proper organs are awake, there may be a 
rational dream. 

I yield not to the too finely-spun hypotheses of Gall, 
and his first whimsical topography of the cranium ; the 
incipient idea of which, by the by, he owes to the Ara- 
bian phrenologists who, even in the olden time, had 
glimpses, although they decided on a different location. 
Imagination was in the frontal region, reason in the 
medial, and memory in the occipital. 

In Dr. Spurzheim^s beautiful demonstration of the 
brain, he exhibits it almost as one large convoluted 
web. While the ultra-phrenologist is unravelling these 
convolutions, it is strange that he sees not the incon- 
sistency of his cranial divisions. Some of the boundary 
lines of his organs must be drawn across these convo- 
lutions. It will ever be impossible to decide the exact 
course of these, but the lines should be drawn in the 
direction of their fibres ; for if the faculty be seated in 
one convolution, that faculty would proceed in the course 
of its fibres, and not across the fissure from one lobule 
to another. Now the most frequent coincidence of the 
possession of great mental power, with full development 
of the frontal region of the skull, will naturally lead us 
to believe that it may depend on causation. Indeed a 
skull, as well as expression, may be phrenologically 
changed by culture or thought. The skull of William 
Godwin, in early life, indicated an intellectual develop- 
ment ; then it became sensual, the occipital organs being 
in excess ; and again, as his mind was subject to more 



IN THE BRAIN. 293 

moral culture, the intellectual or frontal again prevailed. 
I am informed, also, by Miss A , that there was ob- 
served a progressive development of the intellectual 
region in the head of her father, an acute and deep 
thinker. 

We have analogies to this in physiognomy. Caspar 
Hauser lost some of the negro fulness about his mouth 
after he had been introduced to society. Perhaps the 
contrasted beauty and deformity in the forehead and 
eye, and in the mouth of Sheridan^ was a faithful indi- 
cation of that paradox of mind which was never more 
perfectly displayed than in the intellectual dignity and 
moral deficiency of this man. As no function, then, 
either of brain or gland, can be carried on without a due 
supply of blood, it will follow that position may materi- 
ally influence the integrity of these functions. The 
seat of the organs I have alluded to, if cranial develop- 
ment supports me, may be determined on the fore part 
of the head, behind the osfrontis, portions of the cerebral 
mass which, in the supine position, are usually most ele- 
vated above the centre of circulation. '' The more 
noble the faculties, the higher are the organs situated.^^ 
'These, consequently, may endure a deficiency of sti- 
mulus, in comparison with other organs more favourably 
situated. The phrenologist, then, will endeavour to 
prove, that the supine position generally produces vas- 
cular pressure on particular parts or organs of the 
encephalon ; and he will argue that dreams arise from 
individual organs abstractedly or unconnectedly acting. 
There is one spot on the cranium, indeed, identified by 
Dr. Spurzheim as a most important item in the compo- 
sition of a good dreamer. He tells us, that " persons 
who have the part above and a little behind the organ 
of ideality developed, are much prone to mysticism, to 
see visions and ghosts, and to dream.'^ 

It may not be difficult to believe in this partial func* 



294 INFLUENCE OF DARK BLOOD^ ETC. 

tion of the brain^ when we recollect how often the loss 
of one faculty will be connected with paralytic dis- 
orders. The faculty of perception may be lost, unless 
the impression on the mind is made through o. parti- 
cular sense. Thus patients may be unable to compre- 
hend that name or subject when it was pronounced, or 
related, which they will immediately do, if written down 
and presented to the sight, — the optic nerve may transmit 
while the auditory has lost its power. 

" Segnius irritant animos demissa per aures, 
Quam quse sunt oculis subjecta fidelibus." 

Of this axiom there is an illustrative story, by Dar- 
win, in his " Zoonomia.^^ — A paralytic man could see 
and hear, but the mind was conscious of vision*only. If 
the hour of breakfast were named to him, he repeated it 
and was passive ; but if the hour were pointed out on the 
watch, he comprehended at once, and called for break- 
fast. 

On the contrary, there may be the same imperfection 
of outward transmission ; the lingual nerves, influencing 
the tongue to sound a name inapplicable to the idea, the 
person often reversing the names of articles which he is 
continually using. 

These phenomena regarding nerves of sense, then, 
are strictly analogous to those which we recognize in 
those parts of the brain which are intimately connected 
with, or influenced by, these nerves of sense : thus in 
analogy to waking illusions, we have the imperfect asso- 
ciations of a dream when the organs are irregularly 
acted on. 



INCUBUS, OR NIGHT-MARE. 



" O'er ladies' lips, who straight on kisses dream." 

RoM£o AND Juliet. 

" Let us be lead within thy bosom, Richard, 
And weigh thee down." 

King Richard III. 



AsTR. I will no longer hesitate to grant that the dream 
occurs in the moment of departing or returning con- 
sciousness. Still, are you not reversing the order of 
these phenomena ? may not the excitement of vague 
ideas in the mind be, itself, the cause of waking, and i 

not the consequence of slumber, or half-sleep ? ! 

Ev, I believe not, except the sensibility of the body 
be influenced by touch, or sound, or by oppressive con- 
gestions of blood in the brain, causing that state of dis- 
turbance which reduces sound sleep to slumber; as in 
the instance of "Night-mare,'^ which is to the mind 
what sensation is to the body, restoring it to a state of 
half-consciousness^ essential to that sort of dreaming, in 
which we make a painful effort to relieve, and at last 
awake. 

Cast. Mara, by my fay ! the night-spectre of Scan- 
dinavia; that evil spirit of the Runic theology, who ;i 
weighed upon the bosom, and bereaved her victims of ' 

if 

I 



296 INCUBUS, OR NIGHT-MARE. 

speech and motion : that oppressive dream, therefore, 
termed Hag-ridden, or, in the Anglo-Saxon, Elf-siderme, 
Is it not she, of whom it is written, — 

" We seem to run, and destitute of force, 
Our sinking limbs forsake us in the course. 
In vain we heave for breath, in vain we cry ; 
The nerves unbraced, their usual strength deny. 
And on the tongue the faltermg accents die." 

Ev. A very faithful picture. 

Sound sleep will often be broken by pain or uneasi- 
ness occurring in a particular part of the body; the 
dream will then often bear an instructive reference to 
the seat and nature of such pain. If cramp has attacked 
any of the limbs, or the head has been long confined 
back, the dream may be enlivened by some analogous 
tortures in the dungeon of the Inquisition ; and it is 
curious, that a waking wish for some relief from unplea- 
sant sensations will be re-excited in the dream, — a 
dreamy fulfilment. Captain Back, during one of the 
Arctic expeditions, when nearly in a state of starvation, 
often dreamed of indulging in a delicious repast. And 
Professor Stewart thus writes, — " I have been told by a 
friend, that, having occasion to apply a bottle of hot 
water to his feet, he dreamed that he was making a 
journey to the top of Mount ^tna, and that he found 
the heat of the ground insupportable. Another, having 
a blister applied to the head, dreamed that he was 
scalped by a party of Indians.^^ 

If on these occasions we are warm in bed, our dreams 
will be often pleasing, and the scenes in the tropics ; if 
cold, or chilly, the reverse, and we shall believe our- 
selves in Zembla. 

Holcroft had been musing on the probabilities of life 
and death, and one night went in pain to bed. He 
dreamed his body was severed above his hips, and again 



INCUBUS^ OR NIGHT-MARE. 297 

joined in a surprising manner. He was astonished to 
think he was aUve^ and afraid of being struck^ lest the 
parts should be dissevered. 

Tempests heard in a slumber will be often associated 
with a dream of shipwreck ; and some persons will 
dream of their having given pain to^ or injured, others : 
they wake, and find some close analogy to their own 
sensations. 

It is recorded that Cornelius Rufus dreamed that he 
was blind, and so indeed he awoke. 

In other cases, we have the double touch, as it is 
termed ; dreams of forcible detention occur, and the 
sleeper has found that he had with one hand tightly 
grasped the other. If this hand had been moved in 
sleep unconsciously, the dream, no doubt, would have 
been essentially changed. And thus we have all the 
phenomena realised, which Shakspere has referred to in 
the visitations of his incorrigible Mab. 

ElUston was always awaked by nightmare when sleep- 
ing in a strange bed. 

As in some persons, by submitting the body to 
certain impressions during sleep, associated dreams 
may be produced at pleasure ; so if the body or legs 
hang over the side of a bed, we may instantly dream of 
falling from a precipice : and it is curious that, under 
these illusions, we awake when we are past hope 
and our despair is at its height: in falling, at the 
moment we are about to be dashed to atoms ; and, in 
drowning, when the last bubbles are gurgling in the 
throat. 

When we read in the Bodleian, Astrophel, I will 
point you to other curious experiments of this sort, by 
M. de Buzareingries. 

Sounds also may be partly associated with the dream 
at waking, and with reality, when awake. Under this 
illusive impression, even murder has been innocently 



298 INCUBUS, OR NIGHT-MARE. 

committed, on one, who waked, and stabbed his brother 
at the moment he was dreaming of assassins. 

Cast. And so may be explained, I suppose, this 
funny anecdote. A young lover was drooping into a 
day-dream, while sitting with his brothers and sisters, 
and his thought had turned on the cruelty of his mis- 
tress. He was for a moment dreaming of her, when 
pussy, stretching her paws, scratched his leg with a 
claw : there was an instant association, I presume, of 
the wound with the lady's cruelty, for he started and 
exclaimed, " Oh Arabella, don't P' 

Ev. Hippocrates quaintly alludes to the dreaming 
about seas and lakes as an indication of hydrothorax ; 
and to others, as symptomatic of effusion on the brain : 
and it has been asserted, that gloomy dreams in fevers 
indicate danger. But all this is hypothesis ; indeed, the 
delirious dreams of fever are often bright and cheerful. 

The " Opium-Eater" has a strange fancy regarding his 
dreams of " silvery expanses of water ;'' '^ these haunted 
me so much, that I feared that some dropsical state or 
tendency of the brain, might thus be making itself ob- 
jective, and the sentient organ project itself as its own 
object.'' I hope you understand this, Astrophel — I do 
not. 

In the morbid condition of hypochondriasis, which is 
a sort of permanent daymare, similar fancies are excited. 
Esquirol's patient at Notre Dame thought the pope 
held council in her belly; — her intestines were found 
closely adherent together. Another monomaniac thought 
the devil had stretched a cord across her stomach ; — her 
heart was adherent to its bag. Another believed that 
her body was stolen by the devil ; — she was in reality 
paralytic, and insensible to blows or pricking. 

To explain some of these illusions, Jason Pratensis 
very gravely asserts, that ^^the devil being a slender 
incomprehensible spirit, can easily insinuate and wind 



INCUBUS, OR NIGHT-MARE. 299 

himself into human bodies, and, cunningly couched in 
our bowels, terrify our souls with fearful dreams/^ 

I may add that we see, in some, a delirious trans- 
migration of sensation, Parkinson relates these cases. 
One referred his own sensation to others, telling his 
nurse that his visitors were hungry, while his own 
voracity plainly indicated that the hunger was in himself. 
Another, in a fit of intoxication, insisted on undressing 
all his family, as they were drunk, and could not do it 
themselves. 

Now we certainly move ourselves unconsciously in 
our sleep as a relief from painful positions. If, how- 
ever, these uneasy sensations are increased from stag- 
nant blood about the heart and lungs, the oppression is 
extreme, and loads the moving powers ; producing a 
transient agony and an intense effort. If this were un- 
successful on the limbs and speech, the result would be 
often destructive. 

The night-mare dreamers are usually lethargic, and 
their ideas are often wild and visionary. 

Polidori, the author of the " Vampire,^^ was a prey to 
night-mare ; he died with a laudanum bottle in his bed. 
And Coleridge might have thus left a sad and pointed 
moral; blazoning his wretched suicide to that w^orld, 
which unconsciously has pored with a thrill of admira- 
tion over those fruits of his delinquency, the romantic 
and unearthly stories of Christabel and the Ancient 
Mariner. 

The grand feature of night-mare, then, is impediment : 
but how can I record all its varieties of miserable strug- 
gles ; of attacks and manglings from wild monsters : of 
the rolling of mountains on the heart : or the unhal- 
lowed embraces of a witch ? 

The young lady who reads mythology, will fancy 
herself a syrinx, and struggle to escape from the amorous 
clutches of Pan. If we have been thinking of Cha- 



300 INCUBUS^ OR NIGHT-MARE. 

mouni and her giant peaks of snow^ we may be over- 
whelmed in our sleep by the fall of an avalanche ; or 
we may be dashed off a precipice, and feel ourselves 
falling into interminable space without a hope of 
resting. 

A lady whom I know, and who is a frequent subject 
of night-mare, is very uniform in this dreamy occupa- 
tion. She is shaken to and fro in her bed by fiends, 
and the process seems to her to occupy considerable 
time. And there are many who are tortured by the 
feeling that they are buried alive, and attempt to cry 
out, and beat against their coffin-hd in vain. Aurehan 
\\Tites, that the epidemics in Rome were premonished 
by incubus. 

These, and thousands of a similar kind, might be 
cited ; but a vivid imagination, with a hint or two, will 
readily create them at its pleasure. 

" A battahon of French soldiers, during the toils and 
dangers of a campaign, were marching on a certain 
point on a most oppressive day, and at double the 
usual speed ; their strength was eight hundred men, all 
hardy, seasoned, and courageous ; careless of danger, 
despising the devil, and httle occupied with the thoughts 
of ghosts and phantasmagoria. On the night of the 
occurrence in question, the battahon was forced to 
occupy a narrow and low building at Tropoea, barely 
calculated to accommodate three hundred persons. 
Nevertheless, they slept ; but, at midnight, one and all 
were roused by frightful screams issuing from all quar- 
ters of the house ; and to the eyes of the astonished 
and afirighted soldiers appeared the vision of a huge 
dog, which bounded in through the window, and rushed 
with extraordinary heaviness and speed over the breasts 
of the spectators. The soldiers quitted the building in 
terror. Next night, by the sohcitations of the surgeon 
and clief-de-bataillon, who accompanied them, they again 



INCUBUS^ OR NIGHT-MARE. 301 

resumed their previous quarters. ' We saw/ says the 
narrator^ ^that they slept. We watched the arrival 
of the hour of the preceding panic, and midnight had 
scarcely struck when the veteran soldiers, for the second 
time, started to their feet. Again they had heard the 
supernatural voices, again the visionary hound had be- 
strode them to suffocation. The chef-de-bataillon and 
myself heard or saw nothing of these events.' '' 

The superstitious thought this spectre to be the 
devil ; but the heat and carbonic acid gas were, I 
believe, enough for the excitement of the phantasm and 
the feeling. 

There can scarcely be imagined a more terrific feeling 
than this sense of extreme danger, or difficulty, this 
intense impediment, without a power to avert it. The 
constant labour of Sisyphus, with his rolling-down 
stone, and the punishment of Tantalus, would yield in 
severity to the agony of night-mare, but for its transient 
existence. 

It seems to me, that this want of balance between 
will and power influences human nature so much, that 
life itself may be termed one long and painful incubus. 
The actions we perform seldom reach the perfection 
which the will desires. Hence arises that constant dis- 
satisfaction, which even the close approach to perfection 
of some of the most accomplished professors of art and 
science cannot avert. 

We must confess, with Socrates, that the extent of 
our knowledge is indeed but a conviction of our igno- 
rance. The metaphor of Sir Isaac Newton, on the in- 
significance of his own scientific attainments, is well 
known. Sir Joshua Reynolds so highly appreciated 
perfection in his art, that he was ever discontented with 
his own paintings ; and frequently, as I have heard, by 
repeated touches, destroyed the effect of a picture, which 
had been in its early stages beautiful. And Dr. John- 



302 INCUBUS^ OR NIGHT-MARE. 

son, after astonishing the world with his perfect speci- 
men of lexicographical composition, confessed that he 
^^ had not satisfied his own expectations/^ May I add 
to these the frequent discontent of the unrivalled 
Paganini ? 

Ida. The desire of the mind is, indeed, unlimited; and 
when this is intense, it wishes to appropriate to itself 
all which it can comprehend. But disappointment must 
ensue ; for all wish to be the whole, when they form 
but a part. Thus will ever be proved the futihty of 
worldly ambition, — it is never satisfied. But the de- 
sires of religion are not a phantom, or an incubus. 
True devotion, which aspires to heaven, as the hart 
panteth for the water-brooks, will never fail. Its fer- 
vent hopes and devout prayers, we believe, will be 
blessed by their accomplishment. 

Cast. Then the visitations of the incomparable Mab 
are nought but the infliction of the night-mai'e ? Gentle 
Master Evelyn, how should I be aweary of your philo- 
sophy, but that I am half won over to believe it true ? 
In good faith, 

" The Gordian Imot of it you do unloose 
Familiar as your garter." 

Ev. Then, I pray you, let me counsel you not to 
court such ^dsits, dear Castaly. There is some peril in 
the touch both of Mab and Mara ; for although rare and 
transient cases of night-mare excite no alarm, yet its 
repetition, in a severe form, is not to be shghted. It 
sometimes has been the forerunner of epilepsy ; its im- 
mediate cause being obstruction to the course of the 
blood by which the brain especially is surcharged, and 
the action of the lungs and heart impeded, as we prove 
by the extreme labour of breathing at the time we 
awake. 

I believe that there is usually a fulness of blood, also, 

6 



INCUBUS, OR NIGHT-MARE. 303 

in the vessels of the spinal marrow ; as, although night- 
mare may occur in the sitting, it is far more frequent in 
the recumbent position. Thus the marrow is oppressed, 
and there is then no force transmitted by the nerves to 
put the muscles into action. 

Distention of the stomach should be prevented, as 
the diaphragm is thus pushed up against the lungs, and 
the gas is accumulated in the cavity. All these con- 
ditions often occur in our waking moods, but then our 
judgment tells us how to relieve them speedily ; whereas, 
in sleep, the load accumulates. All indigestible sub- 
stances, therefore, should be avoided, as nuts, cucumbers^ 
shell-fish, &c. 

Early and light suppers we advise to those whom 
Madame Mara so unmercifully overlies. A mattrass 
should be our couch, and we should endeavour to com- 
pose ourselves on one side, having, previous to our rest, 
taken gentle exercise. 



SOMNILOQUENCE.— SOMNAMBULISM. 



" It is a sleepy language ; and thou speak' st 
Out of thy sleep." Tempest. 

" Boct. You see, her eyes are open. 
Gent. Ay, hut their sense is shut." 

" A great perturbation in nature. To receive at once the benefit of sleep, 
and do the effect of watching." Macbeth. 



Ev. In the common dream^ ideas float through the 
mind, but the body is passive. When the power of ex- 
pressing these ideas by speech is added, it is somnilo- 
quence. When there is the conscious, yet powerless, will 
to move, it is incubus. When the unconscious power of 
moving in accordance with the ideas or wishes of the 
dream exists, it is somnambulism. 

The common dreams of sleep are not unfolded to us 
until the waking recollections of the dreamer relate 
them ; but the matter of a dream may be half developed 
during its existence, by the curious propensity to un- 
conscious talking and walking in the sleep. 

Sleep-talking is the slightest of these phenomena, 
and, indeed, closely resembles the speaking reveries of 
some absent people, and the raving of a maniac. The 
sleep is, at this time, little deeper than a reverie. 

The voice of the somniloquist is usually natural, but 



SOMNILOQUENCE. 305 

as again^ in the cases of mania and of delirious excite- 
ment, a common voice may become sweetly melodious, 
and there will be an imparted fluency allied to the in- 
spiration of the improvisatore. 

Indeed, in some young ladies, subject to hysteria, I 
have known, at certain periods as it were, a new accom- 
plishment — a style of singing which was far beyond 
their power in waking moments. Dr. Dewar relates a 
case of a girl who, when awake, discovered no know- 
ledge of astronomy or the sciences in any way; but 
when she was asleep she would define the rotations of 
the seasons, using expressions the most apt to the sub- 
ject, such as ^^the globe is now set agee.^' It is pro- 
bable that this was the memory in slumber of some 
geographical lesson which she had heard, but did not 
remember while her senses were active, that is, in her 
waking moments. And an American lady, during a 
fever, commenced a course of nocturnal prating, com- 
posing most eloquent sermons, chiefly made up, how- 
ever, of remembered texts of Scripture. 

I am informed, too, that a lady of Edinburgh, during 
her somnolent attacks, recited somewhat lengthy poems ; 
and it was curious to notice that each hne commenced 
with the final letter of the preceding. 

These sleep-talkings are sometimes the mere lispings 
of an idiot ; although Astrophel, perchance, may con- 
tend that the following, written down from the lips of a 
servant-maid, is a proof of special inspiration, convert- 
ing a rustic girl into an improvisatrice. 

" You may go home and wash your hose, 
And wipe the dew-drops from your nose, 

And mock no maiden here. 
For you tread down grass, and need not ; 
Wear your shoes, and speed not, 
And clout leather's very dear ; 
But I need not care, for my sweetheart 
Is a cobbler." 



306 SOMNILOQUENCE. 

I have heard this trash cited as a proof of facihty of 
composition in slumber. You do not believe it such ; 
like other specimens, it was a ruse of a wanton girl to 
excite admiration. In the magnetic somnambulism of 
Elizabeth Okey, that cunning Uttle wench, who was the 
prima huffa of the magnetic farces enacted at the North 
London Hospital, would often skip about and sing 
snatches of equal elegance : 

" I went into a tailor's shop 
To buy a suit of clothes ; 
But where the money came from, 
G — Almighty knows." 

These are indeed the very burlesque of somniloquence. 
And yet Okey was an invalid, and presumed on the 
creduUty of those who ministered to her. 

True somniloquence is often preceded by a cataleptic 
state ; and in girls like this, the senses are often so dull, 
that the firing of a pistol close to the ear does not rouse 
them, until the poetic fit is over. 

Cast. Were sleep-talking more common, it would 
indeed be a very dangerous propensity. If the con- 
fessor were to prate in his sleep of the peccadilloes of 
the fair penitents that kneel at his confessional ; if the 
minister on his couch were to divulge his state secrets 
or his fine political schemes ; where would be the tran- 
quillity of domestic or national society ? Yet the hps of 
the love-sick maiden have not seldom whispered in 
sleep her bosom^s secret; and sometimes the uncon- 
scious tongue has awfully betrayed even the blood-stain 
on the hand. 

Thus did the ill-mated Parisina of Byron : 

" Fever'd in her sleep she seems, 
And red her cheek with troubled dreams ; 
And mutters she, in her imrest, 
A name she dare not breathe by day." 



SOMNAMBULISM. 30/ 

The fate of Eugene Aram^ I believe^ may be imputed 
to such an unfortunate propensity ; and in Lady Mac- 
beth^s "Out, damned spot P^ was confessed her partici- 
pation in the murder of Duncan and the grooms. 

Somewhat Hke this, too, was the half-sleeping excla- 
mation of Jarvis Matcham, after he had committed the 
murder of the drummer boy. Starting from his bed, 
when roused by the waiter, his first words were : '' My 
God! I did not kill him.'^ 

Ev. A dream will sometimes half wake even a child 
to a state of terror, although children are with difficulty 
completely roused. I have known instances in which 
children would sit up in bed, with their eyes open, 
sobbing, and talking, and staring, in a sort of trance ; 
nay, they will sometimes start from bed, but still asleep, 
and, after a time becoming calm, they have again com- 
posed themselves to slumber. 

I have known sleep-talkers, who have not remembered 
one iota of their wanderings when awake ; and even 
the ecstatic somnambulist, who pretends to prophecy 
wisdom, recollects nothing when the ecstacy is over. 
It is clear also, that the mind varies in sleep and wak- 
ing, in regard to its memory ; for it has been proved 
that persons who often talk in their sleep, have renewed 
the exact points of a subject which terminated their 
last sleep-talking, although, in the waking interval, it 
was to them oblivion. 

Somnambulism is the most perfect paradox among 
the phenomena of sleep, as it exhibits actions without a 
consciousness of them ; indeed, so complete a suspen- 
sion of sensibility, that contact, nay, intense inflictions, 
do not produce that mental consciousness which is 
calculated to excite alarm, or even attention. 

There is a somewhat remote analogy to this, in the 
want of balance between the judgment and volition of 
ambitious minds. In the campaign of Russia, Napo- 

x 2 



308 SOMNAMBULISM. 

leon's march was a sort of somnambulism_, for he must 
have been madly excited to action against his better 
judgment. In this he forms a curious contrast with 
his royal predecessor ; for in Louis XVI. we observe a 
mind that might cgnceive great things, but which voli- 
tion hesitated to accomplish. 

The points of the mystery of somnambulism were 
never more forcibly illustrated, to my own mind, than 
in the following cases : 

In 1833, a man was brought before Alderman Thorp, 
who had a parcel cut from his arm, although he had 
strapped it tightly on to prevent this, as he was often 
falling asleep, even during his walk. Yet, even then, 
he usually took the parcels to their proper directions. 

The crew of a revenue boat on the coast of Ireland, 
about two o'clock in the morning, picked up a man 
swimming in the water. He had, it appeared, left his 
house about twelve ; and walked two miles over a most 
dangerous path, and had swum about one mile. After 
he was taken into the boat, he could not be persuaded 
that he was not still in his warm bed at home. 

In 1834, Marie Pau was admitted into the hospital 
at Bordeaux, her left hand and arm covered with deep 
and bleeding gashes, its tendons projecting and the 
bones broken. She had, in her sleep, gone into a loft 
to cut wood with a hedging bill. Thinking she was 
cutting the wood, she had hacked her fore-arm and 
hand, until she fainted away, and fell bathed in her 
blood. She had felt no pain, but merely had a sensation 
as if the parts were pricked with pins. 

Some time ago, (I believe in the year 1832,) a journal 
thus records a case analogous in its nature, although less 
unhappy in its effects : 

" Some fishermen at Le Conquest, near Brest, were 
surprised at finding, at two o'clock in the morning, a 
boy about twelve years old, up to his waist in the sea. 



SOMNAMBULISM. 309 

fishing for flounders^ of which he drew up five or six. 
Their surprise however was increased to wonder, when, 
on approaching him, they found that he was fast asleep. 
He was taken home and put to bed, but was imme- 
diately afterwards attacked with a raging fever. 

Ida. These walkers were of low degree ; I presume 
philosophy is not altogether exempt from the fault. 

Ev. Oh no: Galen was a somnambulist; and Frank- 
lin assures us, that in a warm bath at Southampton, he 
floated on his back nearly an hour in his sleep. 

Now that there is an apathy of the senses during 
somnambulism is clear, for the eyeUds are unclosed, 
and if a candle be held to the eye of the somnambulist, 
the actions of the im are seen, but there is seldom 
aversion of the head to avoid the glare. Was Mrs. 
Siddons aware of this, when she smelt to her bloody 
hand, but did not look upon it ? In sleep-walking, in- 
deed, there is always one at least of the five senses 
asleep. The actions of somnambulists often appear 
almost automatic without a reason for them ; somewhat 
resembling instinct, as the beaver will still build his 
dome for shelter, even under a roof; or as monomaniacs 
will do a work in three or four different places, forgetful 
of their previous labour. It is evident, too, that there 
is a dulness of reflection when the progress is impeded. 
The somnambulist will try to move on in a straight line, 
overturning things in his course : thus Mathews, in 
Somno, overturned the tables, but had not the judgment 
to go round them. Under very great obstruction to 
their progress, the somnambulists will sometimes burst 
into tears. 

Gall relates the case of a miller, who every night got 
up and worked in his mill, asleep ; and Martinet, of a 
saddler, who also worked nightly in his sleep ; and Dr. 
Pritchard, of one who had been subject to epileptic fits, 
thus : " They ceased entirely until the nineteenth year 



310 SOMNAMBULISM. 

of his age, when he became a somnambuHst, working 
during the night at his trade as a saddler^ getting out 
on the roof of the house, going out to walk, and occu- 
pying himself in a thousand various ways. Soon after 
this the fits of epilepsy reappeared, occurring every 
five or six days, increasing in duration, and commenc- 
ing from that time only with a sensation of heat, which 
from the epigastrium rapidly extended to the head, and 
produced complete insensibility. He was, at various 
times, reheved by bleeding; and, in the twenty-fourth 
year of his age, being then a soldier, he escaped three 
months without a return of his epilepsy. In the 
following year, he was astonished to find himself one 
night on the roof of the house, wet with rain ; the im- 
pression which he thence conceived, produced, some 
time afterwards, an attack of epilepsy, followed by 
contraction of his fingers and toes.^' 

In many cases, however, there is some predetermi- 
nate motive for the walk, which excites the memory in 
the sleep. The somnambulist has been thinking deeply, 
ere he retires to rest, and the walk occurs early in the 
night ; so that we might believe a mood of musing had 
really prevented sleep, and itself been the cause of the 
phenomena. 

Thus may be explained the miracle recorded by Ful- 
gosius. Marcus, the freedman of Pliny, dreamed that 
a barber, sitting on his bed, had shaved him, and awoke 
well trimmed;— Marcus had unconsciously shaved himself. 

And also other cases related by Dr. Pritchard, of 
which I will offer you a fi-agment. 

" He is just recovering from a singular state of 

reverie, in which he has passed twenty-four hours. It 
began in the evening, with a rigor, which continued 
more or less the whole night. From that time he re- 
mained constantly in motion, walking up and down the 
room or about the house. He kept his eyes open, but 



SOMNAMBULISM. 311 

was unconscious of external impressions ; sometimes he 
muttered to himself^ and by his gestures and the mo- 
tions of his hands it appeared that he fancied himself 
to be working in his usual occupation. In this state 
he remained all the ensuing night and a part of the 
following day. During that time, he never ate or drank 
any thing in a natural manner ; he sometimes caught 
hold of a piece of bread, and, having bitten it hastily, 
threw it down, and drank in the same way, immediately 
continuing his work. If he was spoken to, he was 
some time without taking any notice, and then would 
reply hastily, as a person does who is disturbed by a 
question when in a reverie.'^ 

Our study of these curiosities of mind teaches us how 
intimately combined in their essence are all the species 
of illusion. 

Somnambulism is a very common feature in epileptic 
idiots. In confirmed insanity also, we observe in an 
intense degree that fearless daring and almost preter- 
natural power which characterise somnambulism. A 
Highland woman, in a state of puerperal mania, which 
was increased by a terrific dream, escaped to the gorges 
of the mountain, and herded with the deer. She be- 
came so fleet of foot that it was impossible to overtake 
her. One day, an awful tempest drove her and her 
^' velvet companions" to the valleys, when she was se- 
cured. Providence, which "tempers the wind to the 
shorn lamb,^^ had covered her body with hair. 

The dreamer walks and talks with imaginary people, 
— spectral illusion. The following is a perfect illustra- 
tion of this night-fantasy. It is a story told to Sir 
Walter Scott by a Lisbon trader : — 

" Somnambulism and other nocturnal deceptions lend 
their aid to the formation of such phantasmata as are 
formed in the middle state betwixt sleeping and waking. 
A most respectable person, whose active life had been 



312 SOMNAMBULISM. 

spent as master and part-owner of a large merchant 
vessel in the Lisbon trade^ gave an account of such an 
instance^ which came under his observation. He was 
lying in the Tagus, when he was put to great anxiety 
and alarm by the following incident and its conse- 
quences : — One of his crew was murdered by a Portu- 
guese assassin, and a report arose that the ghost of the 
slain man haunted the vessel. Sailors are generally 
superstitious_, and those of my friend^s vessel became 
unwilling to remain on board the ship ; and it was pro- 
bable they might desert, rather than return to England 
with the ghost for a passenger. To prevent so great a 
calamity, the captain determined to examine the story 
to the bottom. He soon found that, though all pre- 
tended to have seen lights and heard noises, and so 
forth, the weight of the evidence lay upon the state- 
ment of one of his own mates, an Irishman and a catho- 
lic, which might increase his tendency to superstition ; 
but in other respects a veracious, honest, and sensible 
person, whom Captain S. had no reason to suspect 
w^ould wilfully deceive him. He affirmed to Captain 
S., with the deepest obtestations, that the spectre of the 
murdered man appeared to him almost nightly, took 
him from his place in the vessel, and, according to his 
own expression, worried his life out. He made these 
communications with a degree of horror, which inti- 
mated the reality of his distress and apprehensions. 
The captain, without any argument at the time, pri- 
vately resolved to watch the motions of the ghost-seer 
in the night, whether alone, or with a witness, I have 
forgotten. As the ship-bell struck twelve, the sleeper 
started up with a ghastly and disturbed countenance, 
and lighting a candle proceeded to the galley, or cock- 
room, of the vessel. He sat down with his eyes open, 
staring before him, as on some terrible object which 
he beheld with horror, yet from which he could not 



SOMNAMBULISM. 313 

withhold his eyes. After a short space he arose^ took 
up a tin can or decanter, filled it with water, muttering 
to himself all the while, mixed salt in the water, and 
sprinkled it about the galley. Finally, he sighed deeply, 
like one relieved from a heavy burden, and, returning 
to his hammock, slept soundly. In the next morning, 
the haunted man told the usual precise story of his 
apparition, with the additional circumstances that the 
ghost had led him to the galley ; but that he had for- 
tunately, he knew not how, obtained possession of some 
holy water, and succeeded in getting rid of his unwel- 
come visitor. The visionary was then informed of the 
real transactions of the night, with so many particulars 
as to satisfy him he had been the dupe of his imagina- 
tion. He acquiesced in his commander^s reasoning, 
and the dream, as often happens in these cases, returned 
no more after its imposture had been detected.^^ 

The case I am about to relate occurred within my 
own experience. 

A butcher's boy, about sixteen years old, apparently 
in perfect health, after dosing a few minutes in his 
chair, suddenly started up, and began to employ him- 
self about his usual avocations. He had saddled and 
mounted his horse, and it was with the greatest diffi- 
culty that those around him could remove him from the 
saddle and carry him within doors. While he was held 
in the chair by force, he continued violently the actions 
of kicking, whipping, and spurring. His observations 
regarding orders from his master's customers, the pay- 
ment at the turnpike-gate, &c. were seemingly rational. 
The eyes when opened were perfectly sensible to light. 
It appears that flagellation even had no effect in restor- 
ing the patient to a proper sense of his condition. The 
pulse in this case was 130, full and hard; on the 
abstraction of thirty ounces of blood it sunk to 80, 
and diaplioresis ensued. After labouring under this 



314 SOMNAMBULISM. 

phrenzy for the space of an hour^ he became sensible ; 
was astonished at what he was told had happened, and 
stated that he recollected nothing subsequent to his 
having fetched some water and moved from one chair to 
another, which indeed he had done immediately before 
his delirium came on. 

Cast. In the monastery of , this story was told 

to a party of Alpine travellers, to beguile our winter's 
evening. 

A melancholic nobleman of Italy, Signor Augustin, 
walked usually at the waning of the moon. The walk 
was always preceded by his lying on his back, with 
eyes fixed and open. At this time the beatings of his 
heart were scarcely perceptible. During this state, he 
noticed none of his companions around him ; but if any 
noise was made by them, his steps were hurried and 
agitated, and if the noise was increased, a sort of ma- 
niacal state was induced. In his sleep he would saddle 
and mount his horse, he would listen at a key-hole if he 
heard noises in another room, and, if he entered his 
billiard-room, he would seem to be playing with the 
cue. On returning to his bed, he usually slept for ten 
hours after his walk. Tickling would always rouse 
him. 

In a Gazette of Augsburg, I have read this sad story : 
^' Dresden was the theatre of a melancholy spectacle on 
the 20th ult. As early as seven in the morning a female 
was seen walking on the roof of one of the loftiest 
houses in the city, apparently occupied in preparing 
some ornaments as a Christmas present. The house 
stood as it were alone, being much higher than those 
adjoining it, and to draw her from her perilous situation 
was impossible. Thousands of spectators had assem- 
bled in the streets. It was discovered to be a handsome 
girl, nineteen years of age, the daughter of a master 
baker, possessing a small independence bequeathed to 



SOMNAMBULISM. 315 

her by her mother. She continued her terrific prome- 
nade for hours, at times sitting on the parapet and 
dressing her hair. The pohce came to the spot, and 
various means of preservation were resorted to. In a 
few minutes the street was thickly strewn with straw, 
and beds were called for from the house, but the heart- 
less father, influenced by the girPs stepmother, refused 
them. Nets were suspended from the balcony of the 
first floor, and the neighbours fastened sheets to their 
windows. All this time the poor girl was walking in 
perfect unconsciousness, sometimes gazing toward the 
moon, and at others singing or talking to herself. Some 
persons succeeded in getting on the roof, but dared not 
approach her for fear of the. consequences if they awoke 
her. Towards eleven o'clock she approached the very 
verge of the parapet, leaned forwards, and gazed upon 
the multitude beneath. Every one felt that the mo- 
ment of the catastrophe had arrived. She rose up, 
however, and returned calmly to the window by which 
she had got out. When she saw there were lights in 
the room she uttered a piercing shriek, which was re- 
echoed by thousands below, and fell dead into the 
street.'' 

Such would have been the result, according to poe- 
tical justice, in the beautiful romance of "^ La Sonnam- 
bula." Had Amina been awakened while she was 
descending, she would probably have toppled down 
headlong ! 

Ev. Custom would render these wakings less formid- 
able perhaps. There was a family alluded to by Dr. 
Willis, in which the father and many sons jostled each 
other nightly in their sleep-walk. This was probably 
but a cheerful recognition and to sleep again. 

In Eraser's Magazine is recorded a very curious story 
of this sort. If I remember right, an individual had 
the mortification of discovering every morning when he 

6 



316 SOMNAMBULISM. 

awoke^ that the shirt in which he had slept was gone. 
Some trick was supposed to have been played upon 
him by an inmate of the house ; and, thinking that the 
practical joke would soon be abandoned, he went on day 
after day, till his stock of linen was completely ex- 
hausted. The individuals of the family were now 
anxiously examined, but no tidings of the stray linen 
could be obtained. It was at last suspected that some 
depredator had entered the house and unswathed his 
sleeping victim, and a strict watch was made on the 
foUomng night. At a suitable hour the somnambulist 
was seen to quit his bed, to pass through a skyhght 
window to the roof of the house, to enter by another 
window a garret that was always locked, and to return 
slm^tless to his lair. The garret was examined, and the 
thousand and one shirts were found carefully wrapped 
up and deposited in a pyramid. 

Something like this is the story of the spectre of 
Tappington, in the Ingoldsby legends. 

The actions, therefore, unlike the ideas of a dream, 
are often neither heterogeneous nor inconsistent, and it 
is astonishing to observe the exactness with which the 
work is executed. 

Dr. Pritchai'd tells the case of a farmer who arose, 
saddled his horse, and rode to market in his sleep : 
the Archbishop of Bordeaux the case of a student, 
who composed both theological essays and music thus 
unconsciously. 

Now if the dreamer be awakened, he will relate the 
circumstances of his dream clearly ; but the somnam- 
bulist, if roused, will generally express himself uncon- 
scious of what he intended, or of what he had done. It 
is, by the bye, often dangerous, on another account, to 
wake the sleep-walker; indeed, we have recorded the 
case of a young lady who was walking in a garden in 
her sleep ; she was awoke, and almost instantly died. 



SOMNAMBULISM. 317 

But in some future somnambulism the same actions 
will be again performed unheeded. And if there be 
memory of the sleep-walk, the somnambulist, I beUeve, 
always relates his actions as the mere ideas of a dream, 
and is long a sceptic of the fact, even if there are visible 
signs of his exertions. 

Cast. / can illustrate this question from the recol- 
lection and knowledge of an ancestor of my own. Early 
on a morning, an immense number of foot-prints were 
observed by the men about a gate (on a farm in Sussex), 
which were not there overnight. On their return the 
servant girl was relating her dream ; that she was told 
the cows had got into a wrong fields and that she had 
gone out, opened the gate, and driven them back. And 
I remember reading that a young gentleman of Bren- 
stein was seen to rise, get out of his window on the roof, 
and take a brood of young magpies from their nest, and 
wrap them in his cloak. He then returned quietly to 
his bed, and in the morning related his dream to his two 
brothers. They had slept with him, and had witnessed 
this feat, of which he would not be persuaded until they 
showed him the birds in his cloak. 

I interrupt you, Evelyn. 

Ev. It is evident, as in dreams, and in rare cases of 
disease, that the mind of the somnambulist is often a 
contrast to its waking faculty. The memory will leap 
over intervals. Dr. Dyce records an illustration of this. 
A girl, hi a state of somnambulism, was taken to church, 
and wept at the subject of the sermon. She never ad- 
verted to this impression when she awoke ; nor could 
she be brought to recollect it until, in her next sleeping 
paroxysm, she spoke of it distinctly. 

In dehrium, also, we see these intervals of thought. 
The patient will commence a subject in the dehrious 
state ; when this has subsided, the subject is dropped. 
In the next attack of delirium it will again be started. 



318 ANALYSIS OF SLEEP-WALKING. 

ay, and at the very point, even the word itself, at which 
it was broken off. 

We read, in an American journal, that a man, pre- 
vious to an attack of mania which lasted several years, 
had placed his work tools in the hollow of a tree. To 
them no allusion was made during the period of his 
disorder. When, however, this passed off, he directed 
his son to fetch them, believing that he left them only 
yesterday. 

In the same book, too, we learn of that lady who be- 
came maniacal as she was engaged in needle-work. For 
seven years she thought not of this ; but directly she 
recovered, she asked for her needle-work and canvass. 
The same may occur in intoxication also, which is but 
another form of delirium. In Mr. Combers work we 
are told of a drunken man who left a parcel at a wrong 
house. When sober, he recollected nothing of the cir- 
cumstance ; but when again intoxicated, he soon re- 
membered his error, and reclaimed the parcel. 

AsTR. These cases form high contrasts with Ham- 
let^s proof of insanity : 

" Bring me to the test, 

And I the matter will reword, which madness 
Wou'd gambol from." 

Ev. Yet if you analyze their nature you will find 
them even proofs of derangement ; for you thus see that 
the faculty of memory is changed according to the state 
of mind. In the following case, by Dr. Abercrombie, 
we shall find the same variation^ in impression and 
taste. A girl, in her early youth, expressed her abhor- 
rence of tunes played on the violin, which she termed a 
discordant fiddle. She was after this introduced into 
more refined society, and became a somnambulist. 
During her paroxysm she imitated the beautiful airs 
which she said she had formerly heard on this same 
violin. 



ANALYSIS OF SLEEP-WALKING. 319 

Lieutenant C was once my patient, and died a 

maniac. The insanity arose from thwarted ambition, 
and was confirmed by his notion that he had seen his 
death-fetch. For some time he walked and talked in 
his sleep ; subsequently he would walk for an hour 
round the table unconsciously. In him, too, was this 
change of feeling. He once talked little, and cared less 
for his child ; but now he would caress it fondly, and 
expressed the deepest anxiety for it. It was difficult to 
decide, at times, whether this gentleman was awake or 
not; indeed, these states of mania, which have been 
termed " melancholia errabunda^' by Bellini and Mont- 
alti, are closely allied to somnambulism, for the walker 
is absorbed in deep thought, and totally unconscious of 
his actions. And the analogy appears to have been re- 
cognised by the law. It is well known that the brother 
of Lord Colepeper, who was a great dreamer and som- 
nambulist, shot a guardsman and his horse. He was 
found guilty ; but he was pardoned on the ground of his 
complete unconsciousness in his somnambulism. 

We do not wonder more to see the perfection with 
which these unconscious labours * of the somnambulist 
are performed, than at the ease and power which is 
evinced, and the very slight fatigue which ensues; 
although the occupation might have been most la- 
borious. 

As in chorea the most delicate girls will dance inces- 
santly for twenty-four hours, resting merely for one 
sole hour ; and yet they will sit down perfectly cool and 
free from fatigue. 

Ida. Is it not wonderful that the somnambulist will 
incur great dangers with complete sang-froid ? They 
will walk over 

« Torrents roaring loud, 

On the unsteadfast footing of a spear ;" 

or scale the gigantic precipice, the mere contemplation 



320 ANALYSIS OF SLEEP-WALKING. 

of which would fright their mind from its propriety, 
when awake. I remember to have read of a French 
Jew, who walked by chance across a dangerous pass 
over a brook, in the dark, without the slightest fear or 
harm. The next day, perceiving what danger he had 
incurred, he fell down dead. 

Ev. It is equally curious that a concentration of 
nervous energy, which is here the result of unconscious- 
ness, should also be produced by fear in some cases, 
which, in others, paralyses ; but this is indeed a slight 
degree of heroism, or energy of despair. Thus we leap 
far higher, and run much faster, when danger threatens, 
than we could believe. 

These are all very apt illustrations of somnambulism. 
I mil check myself in quotations of more, as the phe- 
nomena may closely resemble each other. 

But what is its philosophy, and how can I venture 
on its explanation, which involves the most intricate 
pathology of the nervous system ? unless, with the self- 
complacency of quaint old Burton, I cut the Gordian 
knot by this affirmation, — ^^ There is nothing offends 
but a concourse of bad humours, which trouble the 
phantasy. These vapours move the phantasy, the 
phantasy the appetite, which, moving the animal spirits, 
causeth the body to walk up and down, as if it were 
awake.^^ 

Thus much I may expound to you, if I am again 
allowed to run up our scientific scale. The philosophy 
of the dream and of incubus refers to the activity of the 
brain with a passive body ; for somnambulism, we re- 
quire an active body, with an unconscious brain. 

Now there are four sources of nervous influence : — 
the brain and cerebellum, within the skull ; the marrow 
in the spinal canal ; and the nervous bundles in the 
large cavities, termed ganglia. 

It is on the independent or unconscious function of 



ANALYSIS OF SLEEP-WALKING. 321 

the marrow, chiefly, that those mysterious actions, 
which do not seem to be willed by a conscious mind, 
depetid. 

In the day-dream, a thought or form shall present 
itself, even at a time when the mind is employed on 
subjects of a contrasted nature. These thoughts, or 
forms, are usually fraught with a high degree of plea- 
sure or of pain, or refer to events of vital importance, 
to the dreamer; — such are the objects of the lover's 
idolatry, the anticipation of misfortune, or subjects of 
prospective felicity. Under this excitement, the in- 
fluence of external objects is often for a time lost ; the 
retina may be struck by a ray, or the membrana tympani 
by a vibration, but the mind shall fail in its perception, 
— no internal impression being made. This cannot 
arise from a point of the retina, or the expansion of the 
auditory nerve being pre-occupied, as some have sup- 
posed. The idea of material impression must fail in 
explanation ; for, on the instant that the mind is awak- 
ened, the external impression is again perceived. The 
external sense, in this case, is not in fault ; nor is its 
direct influence on the sensorium suspended ; for we 
find that a person will continue to read in this state, as 
it were mechanically ; but the attention is diverted by 
deep thought, so that the reader, at the end of his 
task, may have no remembrance of what he has been 
reading. 

Let me tell of a curious little episode of Dr. Darwin's, 
which will aid me in my illustration. A young lady 
was playing on the piano a very elaborate piece of 
music. It was correctly and scientifically performed, 
although she was agitated during her task ; and when 
it was over, the lady burst into tears. She had been 
watching all the time a favourite canary in the flutter- 
ing of death ; and with this catastrophe her mind was 
almost wholly occupied, but her fingers did not err in 



322 ANALYSIS OF SLEEP-WALKING. 

their complicated and delicate motions^ which they un- 
doubtedly would have done^ if the will or mind alone 
had directed them. 

In sanity of mind^ and in mania^ the most philo- 
sophical distinction is based on the health or disease of 
memory. The ecstacy of madness may not seem per- 
haps more irrational than an ecstatic vision^ but the 
maniac will not re-word the matter ; whereas the mere 
visionary will repeat the action of the trance as a 
dream. 

AsTR. But there is a sort of somnambulism the re- 
verse of this. In the retreat to Corunna, many of the 
soldiers^ although exhausted by a long march, and hav- 
ing actually fallen asleep, continued to move forwards, 
leaving their companions behind, who halted and laid 
dovm to repose. 

Ev. This is the continued association of that excite- 
ment which has produced muscular motion. The mind 
was exhausted and sleepy, the brain was inert ; but we 
believe that the spinal marrow does, of itself, effect 
motion, while the will and consciousness sleep ; and we 
may also stand and sleep. These soldiers did not walk 
in their sleep, but slept in their walk. 

AsTR. I am informed, too, that Richard Turpin, in 
allusion to his famous flight to York, asserted that 
Black Bess appeared to gallop unconsciously. 

Ev. It is true ; and when we reflect on this gigantic 
feat, we may suppose that the mare gallopped the far- 
ther, because her consciousness of fatigue was not awake, 
and her muscular energy was thus concentrated. 

Paralyzed muscles will often quiver when the sound 
limb is quiet ; the brain's influence being, in this case 
too, inert, sensation is diminished ; but involuntary 
motion continues from a habit in the muscle, or the ex- 
citement of unexhausted irritability, as in chorea, spasm, 
&c. And in some cases of post mortem galvanism, Dr, 



ANALYSIS OF SLEEP-WALKING. 323 

Dunbar^ of Virginia^ passed the galvanic aura along the 
ulnar nerve of an executed negro^ and the fingers in- 
stantly quivered^ and assumed the attitude and action 
of one playing on a flute or the strings of a violin. 

AsTR. It is possible, then, to move without our will- 
ing to do so, or being conscious of our act. 

Ev. There are believed to be, indeed it is almost a 
demonstration, — -four sets of nerves, traced along the 
spinal marrow. Two to the brain, of sensation and 
volition, by which the mind feels what the body touches, 
and transmits its will to the muscles ; two others to the 
marrow, by which it also is stimulated by outward 
touch, and by which it excites the muscles to motion. 

Now when the brain^s influence is kept from muscle, 
that muscle will still possess irritability, derived from the 
spinal marrow ; nay, that irritability will be greater, be- 
cause it has not been expended by the acts of that volition, 
which resides solely in the brain, and which is now cut 
off. Thus the excito-motory function, and the influence 
of volition, are in these cases antagonists. And this 
principle of the incident and reflex spinal nerve is an 
explanation of the curious dilemma, regarding the sus- 
pension of the will in sleep and dream, to which Dr. 
Stewart alludes. — ^^Not a suspension of volition, but 
only of its influence over those organs, which it moves 
when we are awake.^^ Decide for yourselves between 
the physical and metaphysical theories. 

Yet, do you not see that all this does not essentially 
require the direction of mind ? If you tickle the palm 
of a sleeping child, it wiU close its hand upon your 
finger ; if you awake it, and engage its attention, it will 
often leave its hold. This is a fact proved by the 
anencephalous or brainless children. Even the puppy, 
deprived of its brain, and also the mammary foetuses of 
the kangaroo and opossum, fix eagerly on the nipple 
when it touches their lips. There is a beautiful me- 

Y 2 



324 ANALYSIS OF SLEEP-WALKING. 

chanism in the foot of the roosting birds^ adapted to 
this physiological law. The tendon of the claws is 
tightened immediately they are touched^ by which action 
they contrive to grasp the bough or perch even when 
asleep. In cases of paralysis even^ the foot will some- 
times be instantly drawn up^ although it does not pos- 
sess the least sensation ; we may assert, then, that irri- 
tability is in an inverse ratio to sensibihty. 

The polype, in which we trace no brain or nerve, ex- 
ists and moves by its irritabiUty, and without sensation 
or consciousness. We know also that the vis insita, or 
vis nervosa of a muscle, that is, its irritability, exists 
even after the animal life has ceased. The turtle wiU 
hve and move long after its brain has been removed. 
The heart itself, an involuntary muscle, is stimulated 
also to action without sensation. The heart of the 
assassin, BelUngham, beat long after he was cut from 
the gallows. 

If I have made these things clear, I am now pre- 
pared to explain, with some anticipation, those two 
curious contrasts, somnambuhsm and incubus. If the 
spinal or motive nerves be asleep, and the cerebral or 
intellectual, or volition nerves, awake, we shall have 
night-mare ; if, on the contrary, the motive nerves are 
in excess, beyond the sensiferous or volition nei-ves, we 
have sleep-walking. 

AsTR. I believe the philosophy of Leibnitz affirms 
two perceptions ; one with, and another without, con- 
sciousness. I do not recollect if he distinguishes the 
seat of these perceptions ; but, if the brain be that which 
perceives, I presume consciousness Tvill follow that per- 
ception sometimes in so slight a degree as not to excite 
judgment or reflection. Am I correct ? 

Ev. You have adopted the common error of meta- 
physicians. If, in the abstraction of waking moments, 
some persons talk to themselves, as it were uncon- 



ANALYSIS OF SLEEP-WALKING. 325 

sciously^ SO, from the refleoo influence, may volition and 
motion occur, with as little self-feeling. That the im- 
mediate impression, however, and a necessity of action, 
may combine, is illustrated by Dr. Beattie^s case of the 
officer who could be thus excited in his sleep. By a 
whisper in his ear, he was induced to go through the 
whole ceremony of a duel, and did not completely wake 
until the report of his pistol roused him. This gentle- 
man was also told that he had fallen overboard, and he 
began to imitate the motions of swimming ; then that a 
shark was following him, when he would dive off his 
couch upon the floor ; and when he was told that the 
battle was raging around him, he proved himself an 
arrant coward by running away. 

Somnambulism may be induced by congestion or 
irritation of that point where the incident nerve blends 
with the grey matter of the spinal marrow, producing 
internal irritation, as the tickling of the foot does through 
the cutaneous nerves of a senseless limb. 

Cast. We are thankless creatures, dear Evelyn, but 
all this reiteration bewilders me, does it not you, Ida ? 
Yet, in my simplicity, I can but think it unphilosophi- 
cal entirely to disregard the will as the spring of our 
actions. 

Ev. If I must EXPLAIN, fair lady, I cannot avoid 
prolixity. But to your question I will answer, no ; for 
somnambulism may be excited by the memory of an in- 
tention. In the experiment made by the committee of 
the physical society of Lausanne, on the Sieur Devaud, 
of Vevay, it was proved that on the evening before the 
fit of somnambulism, his head was heavy, and he had a 
sense of oppression on his eye-lids. If, at this time, the 
mind was impressed by some legend, or story, or inci- 
dent, the actions of the sleep-walk were perfectly coin- 
cident with such a subject. If a romantic tale of banditti 
were related, his alarm would be apparent in his sub- 



326 ANALYSIS OF SLEEP-WALKING. 

sequent sleep. In this somnambulist was beautifully 
illustrated the effect of permanent impression on the 
brain^ renderings for a time, the sense of vision useless ; 
for having once perused his paper, it was so imprinted 
on his mind, that the exact spot for each letter was 
exactly fixed on by the finger. And we have heard of 
one more interesting case, in which the somnambule, 
remembering that he had made errors in his writing, 
traced, on a blank paper substituted for that written on, 
the corrections, m the very places corresponding to the 
erroneous writing. And that here was memory was 
proved in this, that during the time his eyes were shut, 
the pen was dropped on the very spot where the ink- 
stand stood ; but this being removed, no ink was ob- 
tained, and the writing was blank. 

Now we believe that there are certain vessels which 
contribute to nervous energy, perhaps by secreting a 
nervous fluid in the brain, or by concentrating electricity, 
which Dr. Faraday believes may constitute the animal 
portion of the nervous system. This influence may be 
profusely accumulated in a waking state ; the resolution 
to act has been formed; or, there may be a rapid pro- 
duction in sleep of this energy. Then, when sleep 
occurs, this impression becomes uncontrolled. The third 
form of insanity of Spurzheim, irresistibility, exists, and 
the night-walk takes place. And indeed it may form 
an interesting analogy to that satiety of the voluptuary, 
" Childe Harold,^^ 

" Who e'en for change of scene wou'd seek the shades below," 

and to one unhallowed story related in ^^ Salmonia.^^ 

From this excess there is the stimulus of pain to move ; 
one of the most powerful motives of human action. 
Cardan, if we may believe in his ^' Opera et Vita,^' was 
at least a monomaniac ; and he " was wont instinctively, 
as it were, to relieve this tendency of his mind by the 



ANALYSIS OF SLEEP-WALKING. 327 

excitement of bodily pain/^ I may assure you that I 
have^ during my professional studies^ often witnessed 
(and indeed have sometimes suggested) a remedy on this 
knowledge : you may be aware, that a severe and pain- 
ful disorder will mitigate, if not entirely dissipate, that 
apathetic misery which springs from a vacant or unoc- 
cupied mind. 

In contrasting childhood and age, we witness these 
curiosities in the restless activity of youth and early 
manhood, for at these periods we are very constant 
somnambulists; not so in the passive state of old age, 
in which sleep-walking is very rare. Something of this 
we see also in the growing pains and fidgets of girls and 
those whose duties are sedentary. Exercise is the relief 
for all this. 

Now when the sleep-walk has exhausted this excess 
of irritability or electricity (if it be so), the dreamer re- 
turns to bed and sleep. A hint is here thrown out to 
us, that if powerful exertion be employed previous to 
sleep, the night- walk might not ensue. Lethargy often 
terminates in somnambuhsm. 

If I may for another moment still prose over the in- 
tricate, but deeply interesting question of the pathology 
of somnambulism, I will observe, that we often find it 
one symptom of madness or idiocy, and we know that 
somnambulism not seldom terminates in epilepsy. 

In the brains of epileptic idiots, who are very deter- 
mined somnambulists, we discover changes the most 
various; effusion, congestion, ossification of membranes, 
ramollissement, indurcissement, bony spiculce, or points 
pressing the brain, tubercles, cysts. In some, the skull 
assumes the density of ivory. Yet in those persons 
who have been known to be sleep-walkers, the inspec- 
tion is seldom satisfactory. Plethora of the head has 
often, however, preceded the sleep- walk. Signor Pozzi, 
physician to Benedict XIV., if he submitted not to de- 



328 ANALYSIS OF SLEEP-WALKING. 

pletion each second month, became a somnambuhst; 
and we have known that in chorea^ previous to the 
dance, and in some cases of somnambuHsm also, pain 
has been felt from the occiput along the course of the 
spinal marrow. This is from immediate excitement; 
but dyspepsia and other abdominal derangements may so 
influence the ganglia and nerves of organic life, and 
through them the brain and cord, as to excite sleep- 
walking by remote sympathy. 

That injuries of the nervous matter about the nape of 
the neck are of the highest importance in our studies of 
these eccentric actions, is certain. The experiments of 
Flourens show that the progressive or forward motion 
of animals, is influenced by varied states of the cere- 
bellum. When Majendie cut through the co77?or« striata, 
the animal darted forward ; when the pons Varolii was 
cut, the animal rolled over sixty times in a minute. 

When a soldier is struck by a ball about the cervical 
vertebrae, he often springs from the ground and drops 
dead. 

It is our duty, then, not to slight the condition of 
the somnambulist. If simple irritation be its exciting 
cause, much benefit may be derived from counter-action 
on the surface, and other remedial means. Even if 
there be diseased structure, some palHation may be af- 
forded. As preventives of the fit, we may inculcate an 
abstinence from late meals, exercise in the evening pre- 
vious to retirement to rest, a high pillow, &c. 

If the propensity continue in spite of our efforts, it 
will be right to have the windows fastened or locked, 
and the door of the chamber bolted without ; or to con- 
fine the ankle or wrist to the bed-post by a long fillet, 
which may by its detention awake the sleeper on starting 
from the bed. 



IMITATIVE MONOMANIA. 



' Men, wives, and children, stare, cry out, and run, 
As it were doomsday." Julius C^sar. 



There are other very curious analogies of somnam- 
bulism, which are marked by a power of action that 
appears preternatural. And here again we witness the 
irresistibility of motion, which seems to subvert the 
laws of gravitation and the principles of mechanics. 
The involuntary twitchings and contortions of St. Vi- 
tus's dance present the slighter form of these eccentric 
actions, which, in the intense degree, become like the 
fury of a raving maniac. 

In young girls there often is a proneness to be excited 
by slight causes, — to be startled by mere trifles. 

Savarry tells us of a man who, at two o^clock each 
day, was irresistibly impelled to rap at doors and make 
very odd noises, and felt intense pleasure in doing this. 
If this had occurred in the night, it would have been 
termed somnambulism. 

Gall also relates of a young man at Berlin, who, after 
rolling about in his bed for some time, and jumping out 
and in repeatedly in his sleep, at last started up awake, 
astonished at the crowd around his bed. And Dr. 



330 IMITATIVE MONOMANIA. 

Darwin writes of a boy^ nine years old^ who went through 
a course of gymnastics^ with an occasional song between 
the acts. At length he seemed bursting, and soon sank 
down in a stupor. 

AsTR. I have read, (I think in Mezeray,) of an epi- 
demic mania of this sort, in which the creatures tore off 
their clothes, and ran naked through the streets and 
churches, until they fell breathless on the ground. 
Some of them swelled even to bursting, unless they 
were bound down by cords. The disease was referred 
to the agency of demons, and treated by exorcisms ; they 
even tore their flesh to free themselves from their pos- 
sessing devils. I have seen also a confident story of 
some nuns, who jumped so high during an hysteric 
ecstacy, that they were at length seen to fly ; in imita- 
tion, perhaps, of the Corybantes, the priests of Cybele, 
who, in the celebration of their mysteries, leaped and 
raved, Uke madmen in the midst of their shrieks and 
howhngs. 

Ev. All these eccentricities amount to complete mo- 
nomania for the time they last, and they are marked 
often by a very violent imitative propensity ; like the 
delirium which came upon the Abderites, on witnessing 
the performance of the " Andromeda^^ of Euripides, by 
Archelaiis. Of such nature was the '' dancing mania'' 
of the middle ages ; the tarantula of ApuHa, in which 
melancholy was succeeded by madness ; the feats of the 
Jumpers of Cornwall, and the Convulsionnaires of the 
Parisian miracles. 

Yet with all this apparent violence, there might be a 
power of control by management. On some sudden 
and extreme mental influence, there was in the Maison 
de la Charite, at Haerlem, an infectious convulsion of 
this nature, so that the troop of little scholars, girls 
and boys, were a mere legion of dancing maniacs ; and 
nothing appeared to relieve them, until a ruse of the 



IMITATIVE MONOMANIA. 331 

physician Boerhave put to flight the illusion. With a 
solemn voice he pronounced, in the hearing of the little 
creatures, his decision that each of them should be 
burned to the bone of the arm with a red hot iron. 
From that moment the mania subsided. 

Dr. Hecker, in his account of the Dance of the middle 
ages, notices two forms of this national monomania : — 
'^ Tarantulism,^ and the " Danse de Saint Guy'' 

The first was marked by all sorts of illusions, demon- 
omania, obscene dancing, groaning, and falling down 
senseless. 

The persons who believed themselves bitten by the 
tarantula became sad and stupid. The flute or guitar 
alone could give them succour. At the sound of its 
music they awoke, as if by enchantment ; their eyes 
opened, their movements, which at first slowly followed 
the music, gradually became animated, until they merged 
into an impassioned dance. To interrupt the music 
was disastrous: — the patients relapsed into their stu- 
pidity, until they became exhausted by fatigue. During 
the attacks, several singular idiosyncracies were mani- 
fested, contrary to what occurred in Germany. Scarlet 
was a favourite colour, though some preferred green or 
yellow. A no less remarkable phenomenon was their 
ardent longing for the sea 5 they implored to be carried 
to its shores, or to be surrounded by marine pictures ; 
some even threw themselves into the waves. But the 
dominant passion was for music, though they varied in 
their particular tastes. Some sought the braying sound 
of the trumpet, others the softer harmony of stringed 
instruments. 

There was once a woman of Piedmont who was 
charmed by the ^' capriccio,^^ played by the leader of 
an orchestra, into an ecstatic dance. In her, the sensa- 
tions, as she expressed them, were so " strangely min- 
gled,^^ as powerfully to illustrate the fine line of distinc- 



332 IMITATIVE MONOMANIA. 

tion between pleasure and pain. She gradually be- 
came weaker^ and the memory of the music was so 
intense^ that, while she was irresistibly impelled to this 
maniacal dance, her expressions were those of acute 
pain, and her cries were constantly of those ^' horrid 
sounds.^' In six months, this unhappy creature died 
exhausted. 

The Tigretier, of Abyssinia, is believed in Africa to be 
the effect of demoniac influence. Indeed there is in 
this strange state a complete metamorphosis of features, 
and voice, and manner. In the hearts, even of the 
women, the affections of nature and of attachment seem 
to be annihilated, and they seem overwhelmed by some 
oppressive weight, which is dissipated only by almost 
preternatural exertion, excited by the charm of music ; 
in which wild dance the female is dressed in ornaments 
of silver, like the chiefs of battle. This maniac move- 
ment is often, I believe, kept up from early morning 
until sunset, ere the accumulation of energy is ex- 
hausted; and even then the woman will start off sud- 
denly and outrun the fleetest hunter, until she drops as 
if dead. But it seems the climax of the cure is not 
complete, until she drops all her ornaments, and a 
matchlock is fired over her, when she owns her name 
and family, both having been previously denied. She 
is taken to the church and sprinkled with holy water, 
and then the spell is broken. 

There is another strange monomania, an incitement 
to suicide, evinced in that loathsome disease of the 
Lombard and Venetian plains. Pellagra, The prevail- 
ing fashion is drowning ; so that Strambi has termed 
this monomania, water-madness. 

Others are driven on by still more horrible fancies. 
Thus Grenier wrapped himself in a wolf-skin, and mur- 
dered young maids that he might devour them. And, 
among ourselves, the desire to change the infant into a 



IMITATIVE MONOMANIA. 333 

cherub, has led the wild fanatic to the murder of the 
innocents ! 

AsTR. This^ I suppose, is Lycanthropy, or wolf-mad- 
ness, on which old Burton so funnily expatiates ; and 
to which the author of the old play of '' Lingua ^^ also 
points, alluding to the 

" Thousand vain imaginations, 
Making some think their heads as big as horses, 
Some that they're dead, some that they're turned to wolves." 

In the woods of Limousin, in France, the belief in 
the power of changing from men to wolves is still pre- 
valent. The Loup-garouoo, or Wehr-wolf, was thought 
to have been in league with Satan. 

In my wanderings through Poictou, these monsters 
seemed to me to confine their unholy powers to mid- 
night prowling, and the wolf-howl. Yet Marie, in the 
^'Lai du Bisclavaret,'^ endows them with the cannibalism 
of the goul and the vampire : 

" So Garwal roams in savage pride. 

And hunts for blood, and feeds on men ; 
Spreads dire destruction, far and wide. 
And makes the forests broad his den." 

Ev. The extraordinary effects of the instinct of imi- 
tation in spreading these epidemics, is but an example 
on the grand scale of what we see daily instances of in 
yawning, hiccoughing, coughing, and other similar acts, 
and in the propagation of hysteria and epilepsy. Some 
persons, again, possess an irresistible tendency to imi- 
tate others in mere trifling things. Tissot relates a 
case of a female, who never could avoid doing every 
thing she saw any one else do. She was obliged to walk 
blindfolded in the streets ; and, if you tied her hands, 
she experienced intolerable anguish until they were 
loosened. There was another girl, that was seen by 



334 IMITATIVE MONOMANIA. 

Dr. Horn^ at Salzburg^ who sat cross-legged, like a hog. 
She had been brought up in a sty. 

Even during the Commonwealth^ the religious fanati- 
cism of the Quakers carried the proselytes to such a 
pitchy that the preachers were thrown into excessive 
convulsions^ and seemed possessed of demons. The 
churches were broken into^ and the ministers insulted 
and attacked in the pulpits. Chains^ and locks, and 
the pillory, which were inflicted on these mad people, 
failed, as it might be expected, in restoring their senses, 
although they bore them with the most astonishing for- 
titude. In their worshipping, the same eccentricities 
were seen : after a deep and long silence, a number of 
the devotees rose at once, and declaimed. The pre- 
sumptuous imitation of the Saviour was a favourite 
illusion ; and the forty-days' fast sometimes terminated 
in death. Naylor, convinced of his divine identity, 
rode in procession on a mule, while his deluded prose- 
lytes spread their garments, and sung Hosannas to him. 
Nay, the purity of the female mind was so grossly per- 
verted, that a Quakeress walked naked into a church, 
before Cromwell, as a sign to the people ! 

There was a letter in an ^^ Aberdeen Herald," dated 
Invergordon, Sept. 9, 1840, from which I quote this 
story : 

" I had the curiosity to go to the church of Roskeen, 
last night, to observe the workings of a revival. I was 
prepared for something extraordinary, but certainly not 
for what I saw. The sobs, groans, loud weeping, faint- 
ing, shrieking, mingled in the most wild and unearthly 
discordance with the harsh cracked voice of the clergy- 
man, who could only at intervals be heard above the 
general weeping and wailing. I was struck by the 
cries being all from young voices ; and on examining a 
little more closely, I found that the performers were 
almost wholly children — girls, varying from five to four- 

6 



IMITATIVE MONOMANIA. 335 

teen years of age ; a few young women, perhaps a dozen, 
but not a single man or lad. I stood for nearly half an 
hour by three girls, the eldest about twelve years of 
age, who were in the most utter distress, each vying 
with the other in despairing cries. Their mother came 
to them, but made no exertion to check their bursts of 
— I don^t know what to call it. In the churchyard 
there were lots of children in various stages of fainting. 
One poor girl seemed quite dead, and I insisted on one 
of the old crones, who was piously looking on, to go 
for some water, or to attempt something to give her re- 
lief, but was told, ' It was no' a case for water ; it was 
the Lord, and he would do as he liked with her. She 
was seeing something we didna see, and hearing some- 
thing we didna hear.' She was lying on the ground, 
supported by her father. Indeed the poor ignorant 
parents have been worked upon until they believe they 
are highly honoured by the Lord, by having such signs 
of the Spirit manifested in their families. The service, 
if it may be called so, was in Gaelic." 

In the reign of the second George, Count Zinzendorf 
came from Germany and established the principles of 
the Hernhutters, or Moravians. These were debased 
by ceremonies, which they misnamed worship, of the 
most licentious character. 

Like Mahomet, Zinzendorf proclaimed himself a pro- 
phet and a king, and in his presumption of an imme- 
diate appeal to, and answer from, the Saviour, in all 
matters of doubt, made a host of proselytes. 

Ida. In our own day, another delirious profanation of 
the holy name of the Saviour has been exhibited, in the 
imitative monomania of Sir William Courtenay (as he 
was called), in Kent. In May, 1838, this wild enthu- 
siast (whose beauty of feature and expression closely 
resembled the paintings of Christ by Guido and Carlo 
Dolce, and who, to heighten this resemblance, wore his 



336 IMITATIVE MONOMANIA. 

hair and beard in a peculiar form^ and clothed himself 
in a robe) gained by his art numerous disciples in Kent, 
who impHcitly believed his divine nature and mission. 
His career was^ however, soon closed in a very awful 
and bloody tragedy — the death of himself, of many of his 
followers, and of the mihtary who were called out to 
secure him. His disciples, to the last, not only believed 
in his divine nature, but even after his interment 
were watching in implicit belief of his approaching resur- 
rection ! 

The mania of the " unknown tongues^^ has almost 
equalled this delusion. If we presume to analyse, on 
the principles of philosophy or reason, those religious 
eccentricities, which seem, even in the mind of the 
fanatic, to spring from sincerity or conviction, they 
must yet, I suppose, be termed maniacal, and this 
without the slightest profanation of the Divine will. 
Evil, doubtless, is permitted for a wise purpose, and 
while we deplore its immediate effects, we must not 
hope to reveal its origin or its end. 

At Brighton, some time ago, while at one of the 
Millennium chapels, the wife of Caird, who was then 
preaching, uttered a dismal howling of this unknown 
language, which paralysed some, and threw into con- 
vulsions many others of the congregation. A young 
French lady among them instantly was struck with 
maniacal despondency, and, after some infliction of 
self-torture, became dehrious and died in a hospital. 

We learn from Plutarch, that in Milesium there was 
once a prevalent fashion among the young girls to 
hang themselves; while the same mania once spread 
among the demoiselles of Lyons, to drown themselves 
in the Rhone. The Convulsionists of Paris, in 1724, 
not only inflicted self-torture, but in their wild delight 
solicited the bystanders to stone them. 

The commission of a great or extraordinary crime to 



IMITATIVE MONOMANIA. 337 

-this day produces^ not unfrequently, a kind of mania of 
imitation in the district in which it happened. I have 
known incidents, falsely called religious, to occasion 
similar events ; and what is remarkable, the scene or 
place of the first event seemed to favour its repetition, 
by other persons approaching it. Thus a supposed 
miracle having been performed before the gate of the 
convent of St. Genevieve, such a number of similar oc- 
currences happened on the same spot in a few days, 
that the police was compelled to post a peremptory 
notice on the gate, prohibiting any individual from 
working miracles on the place in question. When the 
locality was thus shut up, the thaumaturgia ceased. It 
is not long since we witnessed in Paris two events of a 
similar character. About four years ago, at the Hotel 
des InvaUdes, a veteran hung himself on the threshold 
of one of the doors of a corridor. No suicide had oc- 
curred in the establishment for two years previously, 
but in the succeeding fortnight five invalids hung 
themselves on the same cross-bar, and the governor was 
obliged to shut up the passage. During the last days 
of the empire, again, an individual ascended the column 
in the Place Vendome, and threw himself down and was 
dashed to pieces. The event excited a great sensation ; 
and in the course of the ensuing week, four persons imi- 
tated the example, and the pohce were obliged to pro- 
scribe the entrance to the column. The same mania 
was almost induced by the suicide of a foohsh girl, who 
leaped from the balcony of our own city column on 
Fish-street Hill. Indeed Monseigneur Mare, of Paris, 
alludes to a society enrolled for the mere purpose of 
suicide; and there was an annual ballot to decide 
which of these miserable creatures should be immolated 
as the suicide of the year ! ! 

Dr. Burrows, I remember also, relates cases analo- 
gous to these. They occurred in the ranks of some 

z 



33S IMITATIVE MONOMANIA. 

army on the continent^ in which there was an epidemic 
propensity to suicide, until the general began to hang 
the soldiers on trees as scarecrows. The mania, as you 
may believe, very soon subsided. 

Ev. Your curiosities echpse mine, Ida. But the 
natural leaning to the marvellous, will, without mania or 
fanaticism, by the mere sympathy of intercommunicat- 
ing minds, spread wide these illusions, even in the most 
simple instances. Some time since, a very large assem- 
blage were watching with intense interest the stone lion 
of the Percies, at Northumberland House. They were 
unanimous in the conviction that he was swinging his 
tail to and fro; a false impression, of course, which 
had gradually accumulated from this sohtary exclama- 
tion of a passenger : " By heaven, he wags his tail P^ Of 
this sort of illusion I was myself a witness. Beneath 
the western portico of St. PauFs, a crowd of gazers were 
bending their eyes on the image of the saint, who was 
nodding at them with a very gracious alFability. Curio- 
sity had risen to the pitch of wonder at a miracle, when 
suddenly a sparrow-hawk flew from the ringlets of the 
saint, and the illusion vanished. 

These eccentricities, you will perceive, occurred spon- 
taneously ; and it is a most interesting study to note the 
analogies between these diseased actions, and those re- 
sulting from the influence of certain gases and vegetable 
juices. 

I have known the seeds of stramonium, when swal- 
lowed by children, produce a temporary delirium, and a 
state of chorea, singing, dancing, laughing, and other 
mad frolics, which could not be controlled. And in the 
" History of Virginia,^^ by Beverly, it is recorded, that 
during the rebellion of Bacon, at James Town, some 
soldiers, after eating the young leaves of stramonium for 
spinach, enacted "a very pleasant comedy, for they 
turned natural fools upon it for several days. One 



IMITATIVE MONOMANIA. 339 

would blow up a feather into the air^ another would dart 
straws at it with much fury^ another, stark naked, was 
seen sitting up in a corner, like a monkey, grinning and 
making mouths/^ In this frantic condition they were 
confined for safety. In eleven days they recovered, but 
had no memory of the delirium. Such also is the effect 
of large quantities of black henbane. Dr. Patouillet, of 
Toucy, in France, in 1737 witnessed a mania of this sort 
in nine persons, who had eaten of that root. It was 
marked by the strangest actions and expressions. In 
these also there was no recollection of the illusion. 

But the closest analogy, in point of concentrated 
energy, to eccentric somnambulism, is the effect of the 
inhalation of the "gaseous oxide of azote,^^ or "prot- 
oxide of nitrogen,^^ the laughing-gas. So intense is its 
impression on the nerves and blood of the brain, that it 
effects a perfect metempsychosis. This gas contains a 
greater relative proportion of oxygen than common air, 
and it is inhaled through a tube from a bladder or silk 
bag. After a little giddiness and headache, the breather 
soon begins to feel a very delicious thrilling ; the eyes 
are dazzled by even common objects, so much are the 
senses excited. Pride and pugnacity are quickly de- 
veloped: we think ourselves grand seignors, and ele- 
vated far beyond the common class of mortals. We 
expect from all a salaam, and, with all the proud dignity 
of papacy, wonder that the people do not fall down and 
kiss our toe. We turn a deaf ear to all which is ad- 
dressed to us; in short, we are dissociated from all 
around us. Sir Humphrey Davy, as the effect was 
wearing off, seemed to have been charmed into the com- 
bined philosophy of Berkley and Hume. He writes, 
" with the most intense belief and prophetic manner, I 
exclaimed : ' Nothing exists but thoughts ; the uni- 
verse is composed of impressions, ideas, pleasures, and 
pains.^ '^ 

z2 



340 IMITATIVE MONOMANIA. 

This brilliancy is probably the effect of scarlet or 
highly oxygenized bloody acting on the brain and nerves 
of the senses. 

The duration of this gaseous influence is usually from 
five minutes to a quarter of an hour. It is not^ how- 
ever, always so transient. 

From the record of Professor Silliman^ it seems to 
have converted an ^^ II Penseroso^^ into a " L'AUegro.^^ 
A man of melancholy became a man of mirth : and, 
although before his inhalation he had no sweet tooth in 
his head, he began to eat httle except sugar and sweet 
cakes, and to swaUow molasses with his meat and 
potatoes. 

Although sparring is the grand amusement of the 
gas-breather,, yet we can oflen decide on the shades of 
character, however studiously they may have been con- 
cealed from us in sane moments. 

A gentleman among my fellow-students threw him- 
self forcibly on his back, by his attempts to spout 
Shakspere with dignity and effect. 

Another threw himself prostrate in the snow, and 
rolling himself over and back across the quadrangle at 
Guy^s, turned himself into an immense cyhndrical 
snowball. 

Another snapped his fingers in defiance, and walked 
with a most pompous strut, and without his hat, to the 
middle of London Bridge, ere he was brought to his 
senses. 

Indeed these experiments seem so replete with the 
ludicrous, that I wonder Cruikshank and Hood have 
not often caught a fact, as a theme for their brilliant 
fancy. 



REVERIE. 



" That fools should be so deep-contemplative." 

" In his brain 
He hath strange places cramm'd 
With observation, the vs^hich he vents 
In mangled forms." As You Like It. 



AsTR. I was dreaming last night, Evelyn, of your 
eccentric puppets ; and I cannot but wonder at the 
contrasted influences of nitrous oxide on the brain and 
marrow, as you say. In one, we see the wondrous 
phenomena of somnambulism ; in the other, a state of 
apathy, like the almost senseless reverie of the idiot. 

Ev. You are shrewd, Astrophel, and have hit on 
these objective analogies with the acuteness of a patho- 
logist. Contrasts they truly are ; and yet there is a 
natural transition from one to the other. 

Somnambulism is the most eccentric condition of 
sleep ; and Reverie is that state which constitutes the 
nearest approximation to slumber. But the French 
verb, rever, is a comprehensive word, signifying all the 
eccentricities of mind, from idiocy to divine philosophy ; 
so that its derivative, " Reverie,^^ may be construed into 
Dream, Delirium, Raving, Thought, Fancy, Meditation, 
Abstraction. 

You may wonder at this combination, but, however 



342 ABSTRACTION OF IDIOCY. 

you may smile^ the existence of every one is marked by 
a certain degree of moral or instinctive mania^ modified 
by the peculiarity of habit^ taste^ or sentiment ; and, I 
may add, of intellectual monomania (^^ monomanie rai- 
sonnante^^), in reference to some particular subject. 
There may indeed be an incubation of madness ; and, if 
circumstances occur to sit and hatch, the germs will be 
developed. When these two, moral and intellectual 
error (which may separately pass current in the world 
for eccentricity), unite, then the man is mad, and be- 
comes an irresponsible agent. 

The term ^^ Reverie,^^ then, will imply the varied con- 
ditions of that faculty, which phrenology terms concen^ 
trativeness ; the extremes of which mark the idiot and 
the sage. 

Idiocy is the most abject and imperfect condition of 
the waking mind, resembling closely the first disposi- 
tion to slumber, the sensation of doziness. The crea- 
ture will commit the most absurd acts, and utter the 
most ridiculous or profane expressions, without the re- 
deeming apology of being engaged in abstract thought 
or abstruse calculation. 

It is consolatory, however, to know that this weak- 
ness is usually connate, or manifested at the very dawn 
of intellect ; so that we have not the painful study of 
contrasting, in one being, the fight of mind with its 
shadowy darkness. 

The idiot, indeed, often appears so little more than a 
laughing or a dancing vegetable, that pity yields to 
curiosity and mirth ; and, instead of mourning, we work 
into the plot and incidents of a novel or a stage farce, 
either that strange mixture of weakness and cunning 
which is delineated in Davie Gellatly, or the absolute 
imbecility of Audrey, Slender, and Sir Andrew Ague- 
cheek. 

But this melancholy being is not always a solitary 



ABSTRACTION OF IDIOCY. 343 

curiosity. In many districts, especially in the stream- 
fed valleys of Europe and Asia, nature fails, by whole- 
sale, in the development of that ^^ paragon of animals,^^ 
man. 

Such are the Capots, or Cretins, of Chinese Tartary, 
as we learn from Sir George Staunton; those of the 
Rhone and Tyrolese valleys ; the Coliberts of Rochelle ; 
the Cagneux of Brittany; the Gaffos of Navarre; the 
Gavachos of Spain ; and the Gezitani of the Pyrenees. 

The condition of the lowest class of these wretched 
beings is indeed that of idiocy ; their intellectual power 
being little more than the mental blank which would 
mark the acephalous, or brainless monsters, could such 
abortions attain the age of maturity. It is mere animal 
life, with the very faintest stamp of intelligence. 

The Cretin is from four to five feet high, cadaverous, 
flabby, the head immensely out of proportion, the skin 
studded with livid eruptions, the eyes blear and squint- 
ing, the lips slavering, the limbs weak and crooked ; 
and (like the Stulbings of Swift) the senses are imperfect, 
the hearing and speech often absolutely lost, — the ex- 
pression being that of a fool or a satyr. And dissection 
demonstrates the frequent causes of all this; for, in the 
skull of these beings, we often find a bluish jelly, instead 
of healthy brain. This diseased pulp is thus the source 
of both animal and intellectual apathy. The idiot will 
often seem insensible to pain, while his flesh is burning ; 
and objects or subjects do not cause sufficient impres- 
sion on this pulpy brain to produce their image, so that 
the being may almost live without a sense. 

Cast. This is a dreary, but, I suppose, a faithful 
picture, and shows us one of those impressive con- 
trasts which nature is fraught with. The Cretin dwarf 
amidst the gigantic sublimity of the Alps; the lava 
stream rolling over the chesnut groves of Valombrosa ; 
the malaria that steams up from the Pontine even to 



344 WANDERING. 

Albano ; the murky sulphur cloud that floats over 
Avernus^ and the Solfaterra; and the poison-snake 
creeping among the honied flowers and purple festoons 
which gild the prairies and interlace the forests of 
Columbia^ show us how intimately are blended the 
lights and shadows of creation. Yet Evelyn will let me 
ask him if there are not many beautiful stories^ which 
we may have deemed the creation of poesy, proving 
that idiotism is not always definite and permanent. I 
ought to blush while I recite them. The romance of 
Cymon and Iphigenia is not a mere fable. I have 
heard a story of a youth who was an idiot to his 1 7th 
year. At this time he saw a beautiful girl, and in- 
stantly felt deep and devoted love for her ; and became, 
from this almost divine influence, as acute in intellect 
as his playmates. 

AsTR. And what writeth the quaint Anatomist of 
Melancholy ? — " We read in the Uves of the Fathers a 
story of a child that was brought up in the wilderness 
from his infancy by an old hermite. Now come to man^s 
estate, he saw by chance two comely women wandering 
in the woods. He asked the old man what creatures 
they were. He told him fayries. After a while talking 
obiter, the hermite demanded of him which was the 
pleasantest sight that he ever saw in his life ? He rea- 
dily replied, the two fayries he espied in the wilderness. 
So that without doubt there is some secret loadstone in 
a beautiful woman, a magnetique power .^^ 

Ida. We do not hold your gallantry lightly, Astro- 
phel ; there is some hope of your conversion. 

Ev. That mind is termed weak, where there is a 
want of the power of fixing the attention to one object, 
a wandering of the imaginative faculty . A train of ideas 
arises, between the links of which there is some remote 
relation ; but its beginning antl end may appear so dis- 
sonant, that the absent person will fail to recognize the 



WANDERING. 345 

connexion, until, by an effort to retrace the steps of 
thought, the mystery is developed. 

Ida. The subjects of this form of reverie are, I pre- 
sume, the wool-gatherers of society, being " every thing 
by turns, and nothing long ;^^ and often, like the dog in 
the fable, losing the substance while they grasp at the 
shadow ; others employ their time by sitting 



Musing all alone, 
Building castles in the air,' 



forming plans and projecting schemes which shall fill 
men's minds with wonder, and their own pockets with 
gold. 

But these castle-builders are, alas ! but the dupes of 
their own mad fancy. The card-house is nearly finished, 
and one imprudent touch of the child topples it down 
headlong. One of the most salutary lessons on this 
foible is the fable of the Persian visionary, the glassman 
Alnaschar, who, by rehearsing one kick of the foot, 
that was to indicate his despotic will, broke into ten 
thousand pieces the basket of merchandize, which, by its 
accumulating profits, was to raise him to the highest 
dignities. Such are the results of self-glamourie or 
castle-building. 

Ev. It is a moral lesson of great worth, dear Ida. 
But these wanderings are often assimilating the true 
delirium of fever, of which the dreams of Piranesi are 
examples. In his sketches of these illusions he figures 
himself as ascending by steps so high that he at length 
vanishes into the clouds. 

Now there are many curious instances of forgetful- 
ness, as there may be a confusion of ideas from this 
deficiency of concentration, memory being, as it were, 
deranged. From study, or intense thought, a jumble 
of strange ideas will sometimes force themselves in- 



346 ILLUSIVE ABSTRACTION. 

voluntarily on the mind, displacing or confusing the 
subject of meditation. 

Thus a German, of the name of Spalding, of high at- 
tainments, informs us, that after great mental labour, he 
was intending to write this receipt : " fifty dollars, being 
one half-year's rate,^^ but quite unconsciously concluded 
it thus : ^^ fifty dollars through the salvation of Bra.^^ 
And the author of the '^ Spiritual Treasury,^^ Mason, 
during his devotion to its composition, had, as he be- 
lieved, taken the address of a visitor on whom he was 
to wait ; but on referring to his note, he read, not the 
address, but — " Acts ii. verse 8.^^ 

Children have naturally a want of power of con- 
centration. I have told you that if a new or more 
attractive object strikes their sight, they will drop that 
which they were holding ; and Foote would often, while 
taking a pinch, let his snuff-box fall from his hand, if 
for a moment his attention was diverted. 

AsTR. The reverse of wandering, then, you term 
concentrativeness. You would not stigmatize the pas- 
sive or involuntary form of abstraction, as the reverie of 
a monomaniac. 

Ev. No. As attention is concentration of a sense, ab- 
straction is the concentration or attention of the mind ; 
therefore the power of fixing the senses and forgetting 
the mind, is attention, that of fixing the mind and forget- 
ting the senses, is abstraction — philosophy, if you will. 

The active form, the power of fixing the attention on 
one subject, or of separating ideas and bringing them 
into association on one point, is the great characteristic 
of the philosopher and the mathematician. That inat- 
tention to minutim during this abstraction, has, I grant, 
caused the shafts of satire to be profusely flung at many 
a "learned pundit ;^^ for the jokes of Rabelais are 
eclipsed by the eccentricities of our sages : Dominie 
Sampson is no caricature. 



ILLUSIVE ABSTRACTION. 347 

As I trace these forms of reverie from monomania to 
its curious contrast^ the folie raisonnante of men of one 
idea^ (in which there is an aberration of intellect^ or 
want of consciousness on all subjects but one,) and so on 
to philosophical abstraction, we shall learn, not without 
some humility, how close an alliance does really exist 
between great wits and madness. 

The records of history and fiction teem with the illu- 
sions of the monomaniacs from intense impression. 
The madness of Ophelia and of Lear, are true and 
faithful illustrations of the effects of brooding over sor- 
row. In the monarch, indeed, that one momentary 
glimpse of reason when the word ^^ king" Hke an electric 
shock falls on his ear, and, for an instant, lights up his 
intellect, which as suddenly darkness again overshadows, 
beautifully shows forth by contrast this madness of one 
idea. 

Dr. Gooch relates the case of a lady, who in conse- 
quence of an alarm of fire, believed that she was the 
Virgin Mary, and that her head was constantly en- 
circled by a brilliant halo or glory. 

A gentleman, on narrowly escaping from the earth- 
quake at Lisbon, fell into a state of delirium when- 
ever the word ^^ earthquake^^ was pronounced in his 
hearing. 

In "Pechhn'^ we read of a lady, who gazed with 
painless interest on the comet of 1681 until she ob- 
served it through a telescope of high power ; the terror 
was so intense, that she was frightened to death even in 
a few days. 

Dr. Morrison relates the case of an insane gentleman 
who had consulted a gypsy, and was instantly in a 
state of high excitement, whenever a subject associated 
with her prophecies was alluded to. 

My friend. Dr. Uwins, informed me of an intellectual 
young gentleman, who from some morbid association 



348 ILLUSIVE ABSTRACTION. 

with the idea of an elephant^ was struck by an horrific 
spasm whenever the word was named, or even written 
before him ; and to such a pitch was this infatuation 
carried, that elephant paper ^ if he were sensible it were 
such, produced the same effect. 

The Reverend John Mason, of Water Stratford, 
evinced in every thing sound judgment, except that he 
believed that he was Elias, and foretold the advent of 
Christ, who was to commence the millennium at Strat- 
ford. 

Dr. Abercrombie writes of a young botanist who had 
gained a prize: he thought he was in a boat sailing 
to Greenwich on a botanical excursion, and conversed 
rationally on all points but that of the prize, which 
he asserted another student had gained. 

Hear, too, another rhapsody of the " Opium-Eater." 
After a close and intense study of the works of Livy, 
the words Consul Romanus seemed to haunt his mind. 
^^At a clapping of hands would be heard the heart- 
rending sounds of ' Consul Romanus -^ and immediately 
came sweeping by in gorgeous paludaments, Paulus 
Marius girt round by a company of centurions, with 
the crimson tunic hoisted on a spear, and followed by 
the alalagmos of the Roman legions.^^ 

There is a story (written in the seventeenth century) 
of a youth, who in a playful froHc put a ring on the 
marriage finger of a marble Venus ; and a strange illu- 
sion came upon him that she had thus become his wife, 
and, in obedience to the injunctions of the ceremony, 
came to his bed when the sable canopy of night was 
spread around them. So intense was this illusion, and 
so cold and loveless was his heart withal, that, as the 
story goes, an exorcist was employed to dissolve the 
spell which had so firmly bound him. 

Ida. I believe it was Mrs. Barry, who (as we read in 
the " Last Essays of Elia,^^) averred that when playing 



ILLUSIVE ABSTRACTION. 349 

the child of Isabella^ she felt the burning tears of Mrs. 
Porter fall on her neck^ as she was breathing o'er her 
some pathetic sentence. Even the study of Lady Mac- 
beth, in midnight solitude, so intensely excited the 
imagination of Mrs. Siddons, that Campbell says, as she 
was disrobing herself in her chamber, she trembled with 
affright, even at the rustling of her own silk attire. 

Ev. I could add many stories to yours, Ida. This 
sensibility, if protracted or in excess, becomes the Pano- 
phobia of Esquirol. He attended once a lady whom 
the slightest noise alarmed, and who was wont to scream 
with affright at the simple moving of herself in bed. 

From the journal of Esquirol I will quote other frag- 
ments, in which we see that every object was associated 
with one image. 

'' During our promenade he (a gallant general) inter- 
rupted me several times, in the midst of a very con- 
nected conversation, saying, '^ Do you hear how they 
repeat the words ^ coward, jealous .?' &c. This illusion 
was produced by the noise of the leaves and the whist- 
ling of the wind among the branches of the trees, 
which appeared to him well-articulated sounds; and, 
although I had each time combated it with success, 
the illusion returned whenever the wind agitated the 
trees anew.'' 

^^A young married man was in a state of fury when- 
ever he saw a woman leaning on a man's arm, being 
convinced that it was his own wife. I took him to the 
theatre at the commencement of his convalescence, but 
as soon as a lady entered the saloon accompanied by a 
gentleman, he became agitated, and called out eagerly 
several times, ^ That is she, that is she.' I could hardly 
help laughing, and we were obliged to retire. 

" A lady, twenty-three years of age, afflicted with hys- 
terical madness, used to remain constantly at the windows 
of her apartment during the summer. When she saw a 



350 ILLUSIVE ABSTRACTION. 

beautiful cloud in the sky^ she screamed out ^ Garnerin, 
Garnerin^ come and take me !' and repeated the same 
invitation until the cloud disappeared. She mistook 
the clouds for balloons sent up by Garnerin.^^ 

Cast. There is here as much romance^ as when Ajax 
mistook a drove of oxen for the armed Greeks^ or Don 
Quixote the windmills for a band of Spanish giants. 

Ev. Again, Dr. Beddoes relates the case of a scholar, 
who locked himself up to study the Revelation. The 
confinement brought on dyspeptic pains and spasms, 
and he was persuaded that " the monster blasphemy, 
with ten heads, was preying on his vitals. ^^ 

The Reverend Simon Brown died with the conviction 
that his rational soul was annihilated by a special fiat of 
the Divine will ; and a patient in the Friends^ " Retreat/^ 
at York, thought he had no soul, heart, or lungs. 

From '^ Tulpius^^ we learn, that the wife of Salomon 
Galmus sank into a state of extreme melancholy, from 
the deep conviction that she was a visitant from the 
tomb, but sent back to the world without her heart, for 
God had detained that in heaven. 

Such illusions are sometimes excited by wounds of 
the brain. A soldier of the field of Austerlitz was 
struck with a delirious conviction that he was but an 
ill-made model of his former self. ^' You ask how Pere 
Lambert is,^^ (he would say ;) " he is dead, killed at 
Austerlitz ; that you now see is a mere machine, made 
in his likeness.'^ He would then often lapse into a state 
of catalepsy insensible to every stimulus. 

Dr. Mead tells us of an Oxford student, who ordered 
the passing bell to be rung for him, and went himself to 
the belfry to instruct the ringers. He returned to his 
bed only to die. 

A Bourbon prince thought himself dead, and refused 
to eat until his friends invited him to dine with Turenne 
and other French heroes long since departed. 



ILLUSIVE ABSTRACTION. 351 

There was a tradesman who thought he was a seven- 
shiUing piece^ and advertised himself thus: "If my 
wife presents me for payment, don^t change me/^ Ac- 
cuse me not of transatlantic plagiarism. 

Bishop Warburton tells us of a man who thought 
himself a goose pie ; and Dr. Ferriday, of Manchester, 
had a patient who thought he had swallowed the devil. 

So indeed thought Luther. As in Hudibras, 

" Did not the devil appear to Martin 
Luther in Germany for certaia %" 

In Paris there lived a man who thought he had with 
others been guillotined, and when Napoleon was em- 
peror, their heads were all restored, but in the scramble 
he got the wrong one. 

And there is the " Visitor of Phantaste^^ in the old 
play of ^^ Lingua," who exclaims : ^^ No marvel, for 
when I beheld my fingers, I saw they were as trans^ 
parent as glass." 

You perceive that the illusions of Pope^s " Rape of 
the Lock'^ are not all fictions : the maids who fancied 
they were turned into bottles, were not more in error 
than these philosophers with their maladie imaginaire. 

Cast. Is there not wisdom, Evelyn, in nursing some 
of these innocent illusions ? I remember Kotzebue, in 
his " Journey to Paris," relates the following anecdote 
of a young girl, romantically in love. Her lover had 
often accompanied her on the harp : he died, and his 
harp had remained in her room. After the first excess 
of her despair, she sunk into the deepest melancholy, 
and much time elapsed ere she would sit down to her 
instrument. At last she did so, gave some touches, 
and, hark! the harp, tuned alike, resounded in echo. 
The good girl was at first seized with a secret shudder- 
ing, but soon felt a kind of soft melancholy : she was 
firmly persuaded that the spirit of her lover was softly 



352 ILLUSIVE ABSTRACTION. 

sweeping the strings of the instrument. The harpsi- 
chord^ from this moment^ constituted her only pleasure, 
as it afforded her the certainty that her lover was still 
hovering near her. One of those unfeeling men, who 
want to know and clear up every thing, once entered 
her apartment. The girl instantly begged him to be 
quiet, for at that very moment the dear harp spoke 
most distinctly. Being informed of the amiable illusion 
which overcame her reason, he laughed, and, with a 
great display of learning, proved to her by experimental 
physics, that all this was very natural. From that in- 
stant the maiden grew melancholy, drooped, and soon 
after died. 

Ev. Truth is not always to be spoken, nor too much 
energy exerted, in our treatment ; for many a mad act, 
as it will be called, is resorted to, as a relief. 

Tirouane de Mericourt was wont to saturate her bed- 
clothes with cold water, then lie down on it. Although 
an extreme remedy, it might yield her relief from burn- 
ing pains. In the darker ages, she would have been 
chained and scourged. 

But from Marcus Donatus we read the following 
case of stiU more melancholy interest ; another illustra- 
tion of your question, dear Castaly : 

^^ Vicentinus beheved himself too large to pass one of 
his doorways. To dispel this illusion, it was resolved 
by his physician that he should be dragged through this 
aperture by force. This erroneous dictate was obeyed ; 
but, as he was forced along, Vicentinus screamed out 
in agony, that his limbs were fractured, and the flesh 
torn from his bones. In this dreadful delusion, with 
terrific imprecations against his murderers, he died/^ 



ABSTRACTION OF INTELLECT. 



I love to cope him in these sullen fits, 
Fot then he's full of matter." 

As You Like It. 



AsTR. So that in these cases it is one faculty only which 
is interrupted^ and not the combined intellect. But 
all the faculties hut one may be deranged, may they 
not? 

Ev, Yes. When the patient is insane on all points 
but one, we term it, " Folic raisonnante/^ 

The very idiot, indeed, is often fond of most exact 
arrangement. The savage of Aveyron instantly put 
things in order when they were deranged. 

White, in his '^ History of Selborne,^' records the 
propensities of an idiot, who, he says, was a very 
Merops-apiastery or Bee-bird. Honey-bees, humble- 
bees, and wasps, were his prey : he would seize them, 
disarm them of their weapons, and suck their bodies 
for the sake of their honey-bags. Except in this 
adroitness, he had no understanding. 

Pinel states the case of a mechanical genius, who 
became insane, believing his head to be changed. Yet 
he invented mechanism of the most intricate combina- 

A a 



354 ABSTRACTION OF INTELLECT. 

tions. We are informed^ too^ of a clergyman, who was 
ever insane, but when deUvering his discourses from 
the pulpit. 

I believe some parts of a national establishment 
were constructed from the plans of one of its inmates, 
who was to all other intents and purposes a mad- 
man. 

Dr. Uwins once told me, that some of the lines in 
his biographical work were written by a maniac in the 
Hoxton Asylum, who was ever aware of the approach 
of his mania. These lines were thought to be among 
the best in the work. 

Nay, idiots will sometimes reason, and work out a 
syllogism. I think Dr. ConoUy relates a story of two, 
who quarrelled, because each asserted that he was the 
Holy Ghost ; at length, one decided that the other was 
the Holy Ghost, and that he could not he, because there 
were not two. 

From this " folic raisonnante '^ there is an easy tran- 
sition to that eccentricity which seems to be a set-off 
against the strength of mind of the deep thinker. The 
'permanent derangement, however, we term insanity ; the 
transient, eccentricity, 

MaruUus informs us that Bernard rode all day long 
by the Lemnian Lake, and at last inquired where he 
was. Archimedes rushed into the street naked from 
the bath, in an ecstacy at having discovered the alloy 
in the crown of Syracuse. Pinel tells us of a priest, 
who, in an abstract mood, felt no pain, although part 
of his body was burning. 

" Viote,^^ says Zimmerman, ^^ during his fits of 
mathematical abstraction, would often remain sleepless 
and foodless for three days and nights.^^ 

And Plato thus records an instance of the abstraction 
of Socrates : — " One morning he fell into one of these 
raptures of contemplation, and continued standing in 



ABSTRACTION OF INTELLECT. 355 

the same posture till about noon. In the evening, some 
Ionian soldiers went out, and, wrapping themselves up 
warm, lay down by him in the open field, to observe if 
he would continue in that posture all night ; which he 
did until the morning, and as soon as the sun rose he 
saluted it, and retired/^ This is mental abstraction with 
a vengeance ! 

AsTR. I will laugh with you at these oddities, Evelyn ; 
yet not a whit less ludicrous are some of the vagaries of 
the learned Thebans of modern times. The abstractions 
of Newton were proverbial. It may not be true, that 
he once inserted the little finger of a lady, whose hand 
he was holding, into his pipe, instead of a tobacco- 
stopper; or that he made a small hole in his study- 
door for the exit of a kitten, by the side of a large one 
for the cat: it is certain, however, that he was once 
musing by his fire, with his knees close to the bars, 
when, finding his legs in danger of being grilled, he 
rang his bell, and, in a rage, desired his servant to take 
away the grate. 

Dr. Hamilton, author of the acute ^^ Essay on the 
National Debt,^' visited his college class in the morning 
with his own black silk stocking on one leg, and his wife^s 
white cotton on the other ; and would sometimes occupy 
the whole class time by repeatedly removing the stu- 
dents' hats from his table, which they as often placed 
there. He would run against a cow, and beg madam's 
pardon, hoping he had not hurt her ; and he would bow 
pohtely to his wife in the street, without recognition. 
Yet with aU this he would^ at any time, directly 
converse on a scientific subject beautifully and elo- 
quently. 

Bacon, the sculptor, in a rich fuU dress was finishing 
Howard's statue in St. Paul's, and, being cold, put 
on a ragged green and red shag waistcoat. In this 
trim he walked out to call on some ladies in Doctors' 

A a2 



356 ABSTRACTION OF INTELLECT. 

Commons. On his return he told his son that they 
were sadly disposed to laugh about nothing. On being 
convinced^ however^ of his condition, he remembered 
the people he passed also giggled, and cried out, " He 
does it for a wager .'^ 

Hogarth paid a visit, in his new carriage, to the 
Lord Mayor, and, after his audience, walked home in 
his state clothes, leaving his carriage at a private door 
of the Mansion-House. 

Dr. Harvest, of Ditton, a very learned man, would 
unconsciously allow his horse to be loosened from his 
grasp, and walk home with the bridle on his arm. He 
would walk into his church on Sunday, with his fowling- 
piece. He would write a letter, address it, and send it 
to three different persons. He lost a lady, the daughter 
of a bishop, as his wife, by going out to catch gudgeons, 
forgetting that it was the morning of his marriage cere- 
mony ; and he once threw a glass of wine at backgammon, 
and swallowed the dice ! 

After 'this we can no longer call caricatures the ab- 
stract philosopher who boiled his watch, and held the 
Qgg in his hand as the time-keeper ; or the American, 
who put his candle to bed, and blew himself out ; or the 
lady, who believed herself to be a post-letter, but waited 
patiently until the letter-sorter had examined her, to 
ascertain if she was single or double. 

Ev. There is some hope of you now, dear Astrophel, 
for you are returning to matters of fact. 

From the deep interest of dramatic scenes may spring 
the same apathy as that which you have illustrated. Dr. 
Fordyce writes of one who forgot he was sitting on a 
hard bench, when Garrick brought in his dead Cordelia 
in his arms. And even the impression of fatigue and 
pain will often, for a time, leave us, when we are gazing 
on architectural or picturesque beauty. 

Ida. Are not those minds which are easily influenced 



ABSTRACTION OF INTELLECT. 357 

by morbid sensibility, the minutiae of existence, often 
thus depressed into a condition somewhat resembling 
the moroseness of these half-idiots ? 

Ev. Ay, even the mighty minds of heroes and of 
monarchs. Queen Elizabeth was often wont to sit 
alone, in the dark, in sorrow and in tears. We know 
not if the fate of Essex or of Mary were the cause, but 
the marble mind of Elizabeth was dissolved before she 
died. In Sully's " Memoires,'' also, we read that the 
solitude of Charles IX., of France, was saddened by 
remorse, for his memory was ever pealing in his ear the 
shrieks and groans of the massacre of St. Bartholomew. 
During this influence we may often find that the fea- 
tures or actions are so deeply expressive as to prove 
an involuntary, though correct, index of the thought. 
According to the passions or subjects which occupy the 
mind, will be the play of feature or the movement of 
the bodv. 

" We might almost suppose the body thought." 

This "brown study'' is the slightest form of that 
state which the French term ennui, in which the mind 
too often is left to prey upon itself, having, as it were, 
no sympathy with the world. Its more severe symptoms 
are those oi misanthropy, melancholy, and hypochondriasis, 
inducing but too often that extreme tedium vita, the 
climax of which is suicide. Out of the first, which is 
but the mere ripple of derangement, we may be laughed 
or coaxed ; nay, it may yield to the positive suffering 
of the body. The second is like the deep still water, 
the awful calmness antecedent to a tempest. In the 
words of Lord Erskine, " Reason is not driven from 
her seat, but distraction sits down on it along with 
her, holds her trembling on it, and frights her from 
her propriety. And then comes often o'er the mind 



358 ABSTRACTION OF INTELLECT. 

a very coward sentiment, echoing the demoniac resolu- 
tion of Spenser's "^ Cave of Despair :" 

*^ What if some little payne the passage have, 
That makes frayle flesh to fear the better wave ? 
Is not short payne well borne, that briags long ease. 
And layes the soule to sleep ia quiet grave V 

Ida. Despair will often rouse even the most sensitive 
beings to the most patient fortitude. How is this ? 

Ev. Not rouse, but depress — not fortitude, but apathy. 
I could excite your deepest sympathy and wonder, Ida, 

by the history of the young and beautiful Ann G n, 

who was hung for child-murder ; in whom the convulsive 
agony which followed her sentence at length ended in a 
resignation which some would term heroism. During 
the nights in which I myself watched her slumbers^ 
both from deep scientific interest, and the request of 
her judges, her actions were automatic ; her existence 
was one perfect trance ; and she met her fate as if life 
and its consciousness had long been parted. 

Even an intense blow will sometimes, as it were, 
annihilate sensibihty, creating an icy apathy to all sub- 
sequent inflictions ; which was the effect on Mandrin, 
during the tortures of the wheel; for he smiled at the 
third blow, to find that it hurt him so little. 

Ida. Then we are to contrast the state of the un- 
happy girl with the voluntary endurance of heroism 
depending on the power of concentrating mind ? The 
almost superhuman endurance of pain is finely dis- 
played among the North American Indians, who even 
chant their own death-song calmly amidst worse than 
the tortures of the Inquisition, or sustain with a smile 
those probationary trials for the dignities of a chief, or 
the admission to the class of warriors, that are modelled 
with all the refinement of cruelty. On the banks of the 
Orinoco, especially, (if Robertson be right, or Gumilla, 



ABSTRACTION OF INTELLECT. 359 

his authority, to be beheved,) the ordeal begins by a 
•rigid fast, reductive of the body^s energy ; then com- 
mences a flaying of his body by lashes as dreadful as 
the knout, by the hands of the assembled chiefs, and 
then, if the slightest sensibility be evinced, he is dis- 
graced for ever. His raw and reeking flesh is then ex- 
posed to the stings and venom of insects and reptiles, 
and again suspended over the scorching and suffocating 
flames of herbs of the most disgusting odour; and, to 
close this tale of torture, it is not seldom that the 
victim sinks in mortal agonies beneath the dreadful 
ordeal. 

Ev. The two great springs of voluntary endurance of 
pain are religion and honour. Thus, among other heroic 
acts of England^s martyrs, Cranmer held the apostate 
hand which signed his recantation in the midst of the 
flames until it was wasted. And the unyielding for- 
titude with which the victim bore the rack and other 
excruciating tortures of the popish Inquisition is almost 
beyond belief. 

The fanaticism of the wild enthusiasts of the east it 
were profanation to call religion ; but with the hope of 
rejoining her husband in the realms of bhss, the Hindoo 
widow clasps his corpse in her arms, and, without a sigh, 
sets the torch to his funeral pile. And, to inherit the 
paradise of Brahma, the Fakir or Yoghee keeps his fist 
clenched for years, until the nails grow through his 
hand ; or forces the hooks between his ribs, and whirls 
himself aloft until he expires, or throws himself pros- 
trate beneath the crushing wheels of Juggernaut. 

It is written that Cardan rendered himself by great 
efforts insensible to external irritants. 

And analogous to this, was the almost superhuman 

effort of that determined action of Muley Moloch 

quoted in the '^ Spectator,^^ from Vertot's ^^ Revolutions 

of Portugal :^^ — " In a condition of extreme prostration 

6 



360 ABSTRACTION OF INTELLECT. 

he was borne in a litter with his army. On the sound- 
ing of a retreat^ although in a half- dying state^ he leaped 
from the litter, and led his quailing troops to a charge, 
which ended in victory. Ere this was accomplished his 
life was fast ebbing, and, rechning on his litter, and en- 
joining the secrecy of his staff, with his finger on his 
lip, he died.^^ 

But my analysis will be incomplete, if I do not revert 
to a point that I had almost forgotten. These abstract 
moods have often been confounded with the visions of 
slumber, being adduced as proofs of the perfection of 
mind during sleep. 

You reminded me, Astrophel, of the brilliant parody 
composed by Mackenzie, of the versification of Voltaire 
and La Fontaine, of the solution of the difficult prob- 
lem by Condorcet, of the discussion of abstruse points 
of policy by Cabanis. You might have added Condillac, 
who asserts that when he was composing the '^ Cours 
d'Etudes,'' he often left a chapter unfinished, but had it 
all in his mind when he awoke. And Franklin assures 
us, that he often dreamed of the issue of important 
events in which he was engaged, believing the vision to 
be the influence of inspired prophecy. Dr. Haycock, 
of Oxford, too, is said to have composed and preached 
sermons in his sleep, in despite even of buffetings. 

These are not dreams, but the reveries of philosophers 
and poets. The faculties of perception are suspended : 
one only object occupies the mind, and the impression 
on the memory is vivid and permanent. Of this reverie 
I do not recollect a more interesting illustration than 
the '^ Dream of Tartini,^^ and its exquisite product, " La 
Sonata di Diavolo.'^ This admirable vioUnist and once 
esteemed composer, relates the following anecdote as 
the origin of his chef-d'oeuvre, the "DeviPs Sonata.'^ 
"One night, it was in the year 1713, I dreamed that I 
had made over my soul to his satanic majesty. Every 



ABSTRACTION OF INTELLECT. 361 

thing was done to my wink ; the faithful menial antici- 
pated my fondest wishes. Among other freaks^ it came 
into my head to put the vioHn into his hands, for I was 
anxious to see whether he was capable of producing 
anything worth hearing upon it. Conceive my astonish- 
ment at his playing a sonata, with such dexterity and 
grace, as to surpass whatever the imagination can con- 
ceive. I was so much dehghted, enraptured, and en- 
tranced by his performance, that I was unable to fetch 
another breath, and, in this state, I awoke. I jumped 
up and seized upon my instrument, in the hope of re- 
producing a portion, at least, of the unearthly harmonies 
I had heard in my dream. But all in vain : the music 
which I composed under the inspiration, I must admit 
the best I have ever written, and of right I have called 
it the ' DeviPs Sonata -^ but the falling off between that 
piece and the sonata which had laid such fast hold of 
my imagination is so immense, that I would rather have 
broken my violin into a thousand fragments, and re- 
nounced music for good and all, than, had it been pos- 
sible, have been robbed of the enjoyment which the 
remembrance afforded me.^^ 

In the cases of precocious children, who are said to 
have "lisped in numbers," I do not doubt that the 
secret may be referred to this concentration of genius. 
Mozart composed a sonata at the age of four. The 
precocious little girl, Louisa Vinning, who was called 
the '^ Infant Sappho'^ has yet eclipsed Mozart in this ; 
that at the age of two years and eight months she sang 
repeatedly a melody perfectly new, and so perfect, that 
it was written down from her lips, and entitled, ^^ The 
Infantas Dream.^\ During all this, the little creature 
was in such a state of apparent abstraction, that it was 
believed by aU around her that she walked and talked 
in her sleep. 

These mental concentrations can, by some enthu- 



362 ABSTRACTION OF INTELLECT. 

siasts^ be produced at pleasure. The paroxysm of the 
improvisatore^ for instance. But it is an effort which, 
like the dark hour of the Caledonian seer, is not en- 
dured with impunity: it points, indeed, emphatically 
to the limit beyond which mind should not be strained. 

The Marquis de Moschati expressed himself to us, 
as experiencing excitement like intoxication when he 
sat himself to compose, and threw his whole soul into 
his subject. It commenced with irregular and laborious 
breathing, excessive palpitations, vertigo^ tinnitus aurium, 
— the perception of objects being lost. Then came 
romantic fancies, like the visions of opium, " thoughts 
that breathe, and words that burn.^^ At the conclusion 
was felt excessive exhaustion, and a state of mild cata- 
lepsy ensued for five or six days together. This ex- 
cited talent, therefore, is an evanescent madness. 

Cast. Another fling at poesy. Were I an improvi- 
satrice, you would not so libel my inspiration. '^ Listen, 
lords and lady gay.'^ In the summer of 18 — , after the 
Eisteddfod at Cardiff, we wandered over the hills to 
Caerphilly, the gigantic towers of Owain Glyndwr. 

As I lay under the celebrated Hanging Tower, which 
is projecting eleven feet beyond its base, I reflected on 
the strange circumstance of the arrest of so gigantic a 
mass in its progress to prostration. ^^What,^^ I ex- 
claimed, " is the power by which it is suspended ?^' 
My imagination heightened my reverie, and placed be- 
fore me the image of the Destroyer, with his emblematic 
scythe and glass, and he answered me thus : — 

" Half-dreaming mortal, listen ! It is /, 
Time, the destroyer, Avhose gigantic arm 
Lifted this pond'rous ruin from its base. 
Why hangs it thus, arrested in its course. 
In bold defiance of attraction's law ? 
Why, like its once proud lord, renown'd Glyndwr, 
Sinks not its mouldering grandeur to the ground ? 
Behold an emblem of vitaHty ! 



ABSTRACTION OF INTELLECT. 363 

A type of mortal man, of thee, of all ! 
Like this grey wall, thy tott'ring steps are staid, 
And on a thread thy fragile Hfe is hmig ; 
Yet leaning, ever leaning, to the grave. 
One moment more, an atom of an age, 
This mould'ring ruin, trembling on its base, 
May, like the marble shafts of lone Palmyra, 
Be hurl'd to earth, and crmnble into dust; 
And, Hke the ruin, thou !" 

And yet / was not mad. 

Ev. I talk not of a gentle heart like yours^ fair Cas- 
taly ; but of that extreme^ when ideas are received by 
a mind nearly exhausted^ and lie for a while dormant. 
As sleep and fatigue wear off, and consciousness returns, 
these images are suddenly and brilhantly lighted up. 
If intense impression shall have been made on the heart 
or mind, intense will be the abstraction of the enthu- 
siast. Until one thought is touched, the patient is 
sane; but, when the chord vibrates, then, as in the 
pathetic episode of Sterne^s Maria, the paroxysm is ex- 
pended in a flood of tears, or in a mad fit, or in a gush 
of wildest music. 

To the latter cause, we owe many beauties of compo- 
sition. Demarini, the Italian tragedian, acted a prison- 
scene before Paganini, in which, with the pathos of deep 
distress, the victim prayed for death. The maestro re- 
tired to bed, but not to sleep ; his excited brain relieved 
its painful sympathies by the composition of the ^^ Ada- 
gio apassionato'^ 

Carl Maria Von Weber witnessed the waltzing of his 
wife with a gallant cavalier. He retired in a mood of 
jealous frenzy, and expressed the ideas which rankled 
in his heart by the " Invitation a la JValse/' 

AsTR. Well, is there not something special in all 
this? 

Ev. Yes, truly, — a power imparted to some, withheld 
from others, — genius. 



364 ABSTRACTION OF INTELLECT. 

AsTR. Yet^ in explanation of this abstract reverie^ 
the phrenologist will^ I dare say^ satisfy himself by 
merely deciding that the organ of concentrativeness is 
strongly developed. 

Ev. It is clear, at least, that the deep interest of the 
subject of reflection overbalances the influence of the 
external senses. The impression of objects is either 
too slight, or rapid, to produce perception, or (in other 
words), however the impression may be imparted to the 
brain by the ners^e, the brain is not sensible of it, and 
there is therefore no perception. 

So intense indeed has been this influence, that Phny 
contemplated the volcanic philosophy amidst the ashy 
cloud of Vesuvius by which he was destroyed. And 
Archimedes was so intent in solving a problem, during 
the siege of Syracuse, that no sense of danger impelled 
him to avoid the storm, or fly from the dagger of the 
assassin. 

While Parmegiano was painting at Rome the " Vision 
of St. Jerome,^^ which now adorns the National Gallery 
of England, the famous siege of that city was concluded 
by its spoliation. Yet Parmegiano (absorbed with his 
painting) was unconscious of the tumult, until his studio 
was burst open by some of the soldiers of the enemy. 
A similar story is told, also, of Protogenes, when Deme- 
trius was laying siege to Rhodes. 

Cast. The flappers of Laputa v\'ould soon have dis- 
pelled this reverie. 

Ev. But if they had thus flourished their official 
bladders, perhaps the ^'^Principia Mathematical^ had 
not been wTitten ; for Newton explained the extent of 
his discoveries by his " always thinking unto them.^^ 

Somewhat like the effect of intense study on the 
mind, the muscles of the hmbs will be influenced by one 
long-directed habit. Paganini was observ^ed, on board a 
steam-boat, constantly to repose on the sofa. During 



ABSTRACTION OF INTELLECT. 365 

this state of reverie^ his left arm assumed the pecuUar 
attitude in which he held his violin^ until he saw that he 
was noticed^ when he altered its position. 

The right hand of Benjamin West^ of which I saw a 
posthumous model at Lord de Tabley^s^ appeared to 
have taken that form in which he was wont to hold the 
pencil. 

By this concentration^ this full possession of the 
mind, the wildness of fancy in the dark is often the 
source of terror ; but this is ever lessened or dispelled 
by any sound or sight which presents a subject to the 
perceptive faculty. Such is the sudden glimmer of a 
light, the barking of a dog, or the almost instinctive 
effort of the school-boy, 



Whistling aloud to keep his courage 



up. 



All these cases, then, indicate concentration of mind. 
" Mental conception is uninfluenced by conscious per- 
ception.^' 

I may add, that, in the heat of engagement, soldiers 
and sailors are oflen unconscious of being even seriously 
wounded. In the battle of Lake Thrasymene, the 
armies of Rome and Carthage were so absorbed in the 
tumult and din of war, that an earthquake, which spread 
desolation around them, was unheeded by these de- 
termined soldiers. 

Ida. I have gleaned enough from your illustrations, 
Evelyn, to believe that we may explain by them that 
solemn and last reverie of the dying, when all other 
ideas have ceased to influence, but the most impressive — 

" The ruling passion strong in death ;" 

when earthly life is on the wane, and the spirit, in this 
expiring thought, takes its last farewell of the flesh. I 
remember some beautiful evidences of this influence. 



366 ABSTRACTION OF INTELLECT. 

It was observed that Porson^ after a paralytic fit, 
scarcely uttered a word of English ; but to the last 
moment spoke Greek fluently. 

Dr. Adam (a master of Sir Walter Scott), on the sub- 
sidence of delirium, exclaimed, '^ It grows dark — the 
boys may dismiss ;^^ and instantly expired. 

The last words of Dr. Abercrombie were addressed to 
an imaginary patient, regarding the care of his digestive 
functions. 

Some time after the trial of the Bristol magistrates. 
Lord Tenterden lapsed into a stupor from exhaustion. 
A short period before death he ralhed, and, after con- 
versing with his friends for a few minutes, he raised 
himself on his couch, and said, " Gentlemen of the 
jury, you may retire ;^^ and then fell back and expired. 



SOMNOLENCE.— TRANCE.— CATALEPSY. 



In this borrow'd likeness of shrunk death, 



Thou Shalt remain full two and forty hours, 
And then awake, as from a pleasant sleep." 

Romeo and Juliet. 



Cast. Evelyn, you have again bewildered my thoughts. 
Sleep, that should be the anodyne of the mind, has 
awakened afresh my curiosity. I am in a mood for 
mystery. Any more wonders ? 

Ev. The prototypes of sleep, dear Castaly, are all 
" mysteries,^' as you call them, and marked by ever- 
varying shades. 

The most impressive conditions of the mind are these : 

Unconscious and passive, as in sound sleep. 

Conscious yet passive, as in dreaming. 

Conscious and willing, yet powerless, as in night-mare. 

Unconscious yet active, as in somnambulism. 

If we go deeper in our analysis, we shall discover a 
state more wondrous still than all we have unravelled, 
in which mind is unconscious, sensationless, unwishing, 
motionless, powerless, as in trance or catalepsy ; an ab- 
solute apathy of body and complete oblivion of mind. 
And yet life is there ! 



368 SOMNOLENCE. TRANCE. CATALEPSY. 

In the dream of night-mare, you remember, there is 
a will, but no power. In the absolute senselessness of 
trance, all sympathy between the brain or spinal marrow, 
or the influence of the nerves of motion, or of the will 
on muscle, altogether cease. 

I will not fatigue you with varieties, such as cams, 
catalepsy, and the like, or with mere medical defini- 
tions, as syncope or fainting, epilepsy, apoplexy, and 
their analogies. 

By the term trance I would define all those conditions 
in which there is protracted derangement of volition or 
the will; sensibility and voluntary action being sus- 
pended, while the vital functions are performed, yet 
with diminished energy ; the " deep sleep^^ of Paracelsus, 
Hieronymus Fabricius, Celsus, and other writers of 
antiquity. 

In some the rosy colour of the lips and cheeks will 
not fade ; in others, they are pale and bloodless ; the 
body becomes cold as marble, the pulse often imper- 
ceptible, and the vapour of breathing on a polished sur- 
face alone distinguishes the still living being from the 
perfect work of the sculptor. I have, however, had 
patients who were rosy when they fell asleep, but be- 
came pale about the end of the second day. 

Girls often smile sweetly in full catalepsy, but the 
countenance will become anxious as waking approaches ; 
and this must ever excite suspicion. The body indeed 
is, to the external world, dead ; for although the cata- 
leptic will often swallow food, while all the other muscles 
are in spasm, this may, I believe does, depend on mere 
irritability, by which, as I before told you, the brain is 
first excited, and then directs a movement without the 
mind's feeling. Catalepsy is so peculiar to young fe- 
males of extreme sensibility, that it may be considered 
an intense hysteria, depending on certain sympathies, or 
resulting from sudden or powerful influences on the 



SOMNOLENCE. TRANCE. CATALEPSY. 3^9 

passions. The form of catalepsy marked by hysteria is 
least dangerous; but it is very stubborn. Probably 
this is the form so common in Germany. 

Previous to the cataleptic acme girls are often maniac- 
ally violent^ and will then suddenly regain their temper 
and their reason. They will sit and play with their 
fingers in a sullen mood, and the power of motion and 
speech and other acts of volition may be alternately 
impaired or lost. In some, the sleep has been preceded 
by fits of lethargy, by lassitude, and inaptitude to exer- 
tion, and perhaps a propensity to sleep-walking. The 
decided state of catalepsy has begun in an epileptic 
convulsion. In all, I think, I have seen combined with 
this disorder, irregular determination of blood ; in one 
case, where the taste and smell were gone for four or 
five months, the climax was suicide by arsenic. 

The countenance is almost always placid in cataleptic 
sleep ; the eyes being turned up, the pupils dilated, but 
the eyelids closed. If the fit be the result of sudden 
fright, the features will remain as they were at that 
moment — the eyelid fixed, but the pupil usually sensible. 
The joints and muscles are pliable, and may be moulded 
to any form, but they remain in that position as rigidly 
fixed as the limbs of a lay figure, or the anchylosed 
joints of the self- torturing fakir ; insensible to all sti- 
muli, beating, tickling, or pricking. 

I have seen patients lapse into a state of catalepsy, in 
a moment, without a struggle. I remember, during one 
of my visits to the asylum in Hoxton, a maniac, who 
often in the midst of his occupation became instan- 
taneously a statue; leaning a little forward, one arm 
lifted up, and the index finger pointed as at some in- 
teresting object; the eye staring and ghastly, and the 
whole expression as of one rapt in an ecstacy of thought 
or vision. 

The waking from a trance, like the recovery from the 

Bb 



370 SOMNOLENCE. TRANCE. CATALEPSY. 

asphyxia of drowning, is painful. It is attended with a 
struggle, and the hand is almost invariably placed 
firmly over the hearty as if its actions were a painful 
effort to overcome congestion. 

In some cases, indeed, a purple hue will suddenly 
suffuse the cataleptic body; the limbs are then extremely 
rigid, but become pliant when the healthy tint is re- 
stored. 

The sensation in the brain of the cataleptic, as of 
those recovering from drowning, resembles the pricking 
of needles, the circulation soon becoming accelerated. 
Hunger is usually intense when the patient awakes. 
The usual duration of catalepsy is from twenty to forty 
hours. The return of volition is commonly marked by 
perspiration ; this premonitory sign is often followed by 
a piercing shriek, as in the case of night-mare, and, 
indeed, in a slight degree, of an infantas cry as soon as 
it is born. 

It has appeared to me that the cataleptic is marked 
by extremes of feeling and disposition. The sensibility 
either being too dull for the feeling of joy, or so in- 
tensely excited by pleasure, as to approach the confine 
of delirium. One of my patients, in particular, who 
was an eighty-hour sleeper, endured a metamorphosis 
from religious enthusiasm to theatrical mania. Her 
Bible was discarded for romances and play-books, and 
even the most licentious volumes. 

Cast. I have read, (I suppose in some moth-eaten 
tomes enshrined I know not where,) of a scholar of 
Lubeck, who slept seven years ; in Diogenes Laertius, 
of Epimenides, who slept fifty-one years in a cave ; in 
Ricaut, of the seven devoted sleepers of Ephesus (the 
same, I presume, as the seven illustrious sleepers of 
Mahomet^s tale in the Koran) 5 and of the Leucomo- 
rians, who fall asleep with the swallows early in No- 
vember, and wake at the end of April. 

6 



I 



SOMNOLENCE. TRANCE. CATALEPSY. 371 

One moment more among the legends of romance. 
In the " Hierarchie of the Blessed Angels'^ it is written^ 
that in a dark cavern of the Baltic, there were discovered 
five men in Roman habits, so deeply sleeping, that all 
efforts to awaken them were unavailing. 

Ogier the Dane is now sleeping in the dungeon of 
Cronenburg Castle — (so recordeth the " Danske Folk 
Sagar) 

Prince Arthur, too, was lying, when a chronicle was 
writ, in a trance at Avelon; and the Britons, with 
implicit belief, were watching for his awaking. 

Years have passed since these mysterious legends 
were penned, and I dare not say that the spells are 
broken yet. 

Ev. If they then slept, sweet Castaly, they are surely 
sleeping now. Tales lose nothing by telhng, and nature 
is often thus magnified into a miracle. You may how- 
ever believe this, that a periodical catalepsy with inter- 
vals may last even for years. The " Memoirs of the 
Academy of Berlin" record the case of a woman, who 
sunk into catalepsy twice a day for many years ; during 
which period she was married, and became the almost 
unconscious mother of children. 

Nay, there is a story of Mynheer Vander Gucht, of 
Bremen, who, with very brief intermissions, slept and 
dreamt for thirty years ; so that, on the return of travel- 
lers by sea or land, the primal question was, if Mr. 
Vander Gucht was up ! 

Ida. Catalepsy, I believe, has been often feigned ; 
and, although it is astonishing with what apathy pain 
may be endured, the imposture, I presume, may be 
usually discovered by the proposition of some horrible 
remedy. 

Ev. Frequently ; but many impostors have withstood 
the test, and triumphed in their deception. Yet it is 
true that the perfect state of catalepsy has been, in 

Bb2 



372 SOMNOLENCE. TRANCE. — CATALEPSY. 

very rare instances^ voluntarily produced ; thus exhibit- 
ing the complete influence of will over an involuntary 
muscle, the heart. 

The case of Colonel Townsend I adduce^ as one of 
undoubted authority. This officer was able to suspend 
the action both of his heart and lungs, after which he 
became motionless, icy cold, and rigid, — a glassy film 
overspreading his eyes. As there was no breathing, 
there was no vapour apparent on the glass, when held 
to his mouth. During the many hours in which this 
voluntary trance existed, there was a total absence of 
consciousness, yet 2. faculty of self-reanimation ! 

Avicenna speaks of one that could " cast himself into 
a palsie when he list;^' and Celsus, of a priest that 
could " separate himself fi'om his senses when he hst, 
and lie like a dead man, void of hfe and sense.^^ Cardan, 
the Pavian astrologer, brags of himself that he could do 
as much, and that " when he list.^^ 

Dr. Cleghorn, of Glasgow, relates the case of a man 
who could stop the pulse at his wrist, and reduce him- 
self to the condition of syncope, by his will, of course. 

Barton, the holy maid of Kent, was enabled thus to 
" absorb her faculties.^^ 

Restitutus, a presbyter, could also throw himself into 
a trance, — ^being insensible, except to the very loudest 
sounds. So says Augustin. 

AsTR. So that there may not be much imposture in 
the case, recorded in the " Spectator," of Nicholas Hart, 
a professor of somnolency, who lived by sleeping. The 
following is his advertisement in the " Daily Courant," 
of that time : — 

'^ Nicholas Hart, who slept last year in Saint Bar- 
tholomew's Hospital, intends to sleep this year at the 
' Cock and Bottle,' in Little Britain.'' 

I will freely confess to you, Evelyn, my scepticism 
as to these ultra romantic legends ; but may my own 



SOMNOLENCE. TRANCE. CATALEPSY. 373 

memory fail me not^ while I relate a few strange stories, 
ai^d demand of yourself confirmation. 

Euphemia Lindsay, of Forfai*shire, slept eight weeks, 
having taken nothing but (possibly) a little cold water. 
In the eighth week she died. 

Angelica Vlies, of Delft, had fasted in a state of in- 
sensibility from 1822 to 1828. She took nothing but 
water, tea, and whey, and these in the most minute 
quantities. 

In a record, a.d. 1545, I read that " William Foxley, 
a pot-maker to the Mint in London, slept in the Tower 
of London (not being by any means to be waked) 
fourteen days and fifteen nights ; and, when he waked, 
it seemed to him that the interval was but as one 
night.'^ 

Samuel Clinton, of Timbury, near Bath, often slept 
for a month ; and once, from April to August. He 
would, during this period, suddenly wake, but ere food 
could be administered to him, he lapsed again into a 
trance. 

Margaret Lyall (of Edinburgh) slept from the morn- 
ing of June 27th to the evening of the 30th, then from 
July 1st to August 8th. Her breathing was scarcely 
perceptible, and her pulse low ; one arm was sensitive, 
the other senseless, to the pricking of pins. She had 
never any subsequent cognizance of this sleep. 

A lady, at Nismes, had periodical attacks of trance ; 
and it is curious that the intervals of waking were 
always of the same duration as the previous time of 
sleeping, however these might vary. 

In the year 1738, Elizabeth Orvin slept for four 
days ; and, for the period of ten years afterwards, 
passed seventeen hours of the twenty-four in sleep. No 
stimuli were powerful enough to rouse her : acupunc- 
turation, flagellation, and even the stinging of bees were 
ineffectual. Like many other somnolents, she was 



374 SOMNOLENCE. TRANCE. CATALEPSY. 

morose and irritable^ especially previous to the sleep- 
ing-fit. 

^^ Elizabeth Parker, of Morley Saint Peter, in Nor- 
folk, for a considerable time was very irregular in her 
times of waking, which was once in seven days ; after 
which they became irregular and precarious, and though 
of shorter duration, they were equally profound ; and 
every attempt at keeping her awake, or waking her, was 
vain. Various experiments were tried, and an* itinerant 
empiric, elated with the hope of rousing her from what 
he called counterfeit sleep^ blew into her nostrils the 
powder of white hellebore ; but the poor creature re- 
mained insensible to the inhumanity of the deed, which, 
instead of producing the boasted effect, excoriated the 
skin of her nose, lips, and face.^^ 

The records of medicine, I doubt not, may add a 
volume to these simple stories, and, perchance, may 
unfold to us something of the exciting causes which 
have induced these strange conditions ; yet they seem 
to me so various, in some the effect being so sudden, in 
others so gradual, that it were vain for me to conjec- 
ture. 

Ev. The influence of fear, and fright, and extreme 
joy, will often produce instantaneous paralysis ; while 
that of intense study, or anxiety, will steal on by de- 
grees; and then, while in some cases the senses will 
be entirely apathetic, in others, they will be acutely 
ewcited. 

Mendelssohn almost every evening immediately fell 
into a trance whenever ^^ philosophy^^ was even named 
in his presence ; and so acutely deranged was then his 
conception of sound, that a voice of stentorian force 
seemed to ring in his ears, repeating to him any impres- 
sive conversation he had heard during the day. 

Without presuming to satisfy Astrophel in explaining 
the full pathology of these curious cases, I may, by 



SOMNOLENCE. TRANCE. CATALEPSY. 375 

analogy, illustrate his question by alluding to the acute 
influence which impressions exert on the mind, and, 
through it, on the body. 

Captain D , on service in Ceylon, was ordered to 

march to the Kandian territory. This district had been 
the grave of many officers who had resided in it. From 
this circumstance, and the anticipation of a similar 
fatality to himself, he became speechless, and died in 
fifty hours. 

During the plague of Egypt, lots were drawn for a 
decision as to what surgeon should remain with the 
sick on the departure of the troops. Mr. Dick, the 
army inspector, relates that on one occasion the surgeon 
on whom the lot fell dropped dead. 

In the treaty with Meer Jaffier, Colonel Clive omitted 
the name of the Gentoo merchant, Omichund. This 
man was induced to expect treasures to the amount of 
one million, for his aid in deposing the Bengal nabob. 
From this disappointment he became speechless, and 
subsequently insane. 

George Grokatski, a Polish soldier, deserted. He 
was discovered a few days after, drinking and merry- 
making. On his court-martial he became speechless, 
unconscious, and fixed as a statue. For twenty days 
and nights he lay in this trance, without nourishment ; 
he then sunk and died. 

Some girls (as we read in Platerus) playing near a 
gibbet, one wantonly flung stones at the criminal sus- 
pended on it. Being violently struck the body swung, 
and the girl, believing that it was alive, and was de- 
scending from the gibbet, fell into violent convulsions 
and died. 

The following case, although not fatal, very power- 
fully displays the paralyzing effects of imagination. 

A lady in perfect health, twenty-three years of age, 
was asked by the parents of a friend to be present at a 



376 SOMNOLENCE. TRANCE. CATALEPSY. 

severe surgical operation. On consideration^ it was 
thought wrong to expose her to such a scene^ and the 
operation was postponed for a few hours. She went to 
bed^ however, with the imagination highly excited, and 
awoke in alarm hearing, or thinking she heard, the 
shrieks of her friend under the agony of an operation. 
Convulsions and hysterics supervened, and, on their 
subsiding, she went into a profound sleep, which con- 
tinued sixty-three hours. The most eminent of the 
faculty were then consulted, and she was cupped, which 
awoke her ; but the convulsions returned, and she again 
went to sleep, and slept, with few intermissions, for a 
fortnight. The irregular periods continued for ten or 
twelve years ; the length of the sleeping fits from thirty 
to forty hours. Then came on irritability, and total 
want of sleep, for three months ; her usual time for 
sleeping being then forty-eight hours. 

But if the sudden transition be excess of joy, its effect 
may be equally melancholy. 

WesclofF was detained as a hostage by the Kalmucs, 
and carried along with them in their memorable flight 
to China. His widowed mother had mourned him dead, 
and, on his sudden return, the excess of joy was in- 
stantaneously fatal. 

In the year 1544 the Jewish pirate, Sinamus TafFurus, 
was lying in a port of the Red Sea, called Orsenoe, and 
was preparing for war, being then engaged in one with 
the Portuguese. While he was there he received the 
unexpected intelligence that his son (who in the siege 
of Tunis had been made prisoner by Barbarossa, and by 
him doomed to slavery) was suddenly ransomed, and 
coming to his aid with seven ships, well armed. He was 
immediately struck as if with apoplexy, and expired on 
the spot. 

A Swiss student, writes Zimmerman, yielded himself 
to intense metaphysical study, which gradually pro- 



SOMNOLENCE. TRANCE. CATALEPSY. 377 

duced a complete trance of the senses ; the functions 
of the body being not inactive. After the lapse of a 
year of apparent idiocy, each sense was successively ex- 
cited by its proper stimulus ; the ear by loud sounds, 
&c. When these were restored, the mind was again 
perfect, although in this effort his strength was nearly 
exhausted. 

I may add that lunar influence, though it is now 
somewhat out of fashion, was formerly believed even by 
so sage a physician as Dr. Mead and others, and Astro- 
phel will thank me for blending with his own examples 
the following case of catalepsy in a moon-struck maiden. 
At the full of the moon this damsel fell in a fit ; the 
recurrence obeying the regular periods of the tide. 
During the flood she lay in a speechless trance, and 
revived from it on the ebb. Her father was engaged 
on the Thames, and so struck was he with the regularity 
of these attacks, that on his return from the river he 
correctly anticipated the condition of his daughter ; and 
even in the night he has arisen to his work, as her cries 
on recovering from the fit were always a correct monitor 
to him of the turning of the tide. 



PREMATURE INTERMENT. — RESUSCITA- 
TION. 



" Oh sleep ! thou ape of death, lie dull upon her; 
And he her sense hut as a monument, 
Thus in a chapel lying." Cymbeiine. 

■ Sleep may usurp on nature many hours." 

Pericles. 



Ida. These stories are^ indeed^ painfully interesting ; 
but tell us^ Evelyn, is it so certain that the shaft of 
Azrael had irretrievably struck these unhappy creatures 
of whom you speak ? Is it not to be feared that in- 
stances of premature sepulture have too often occurred 
from want of scientific discernment ? On the exhuma- 
tion of the Cimetiere des Innocens at Paris, during the 
Napoleon dynasty, the skeletons were many of them 
discovered in attitudes indicating a struggling to get 
free : indeed some, we are assured, were partly out of 
their coffins. 

To avert this awful catastrophe it was the custom, in 
the provinces of Germany, to place a bell-rope in the 
hand of a corpse for twenty-four hours before burial. 
We may look on this, perhaps, as one natural source 
of romance and mystery ; for the ringing of bells by the 
dead has been a favourite omen of the ghostly legends. 



PREMATURE INTERMENT. 379 

Ev. Alas ! even my own professional study and duties 
have not been free from these melancholy scenes ; and 
if I make not your gentle heart to tremble^ fair Castaly^ 
I will recount some of those unhappy instances of fata- 
lity, to which the errors and neglect of man may doom 
his fellow-mortal. 

Miss C (of C Hall, in Warwickshire,) and 

her brother were the subjects of typhoid fever. She 
seemed to die, and her bier w^as placed in the family 
vault. In a week her brother died also, and when he 
was taken to the tomb, the lady was found sitting in her 
grave-clothes on the steps of the vault ; having, after her 
waking from the trance, died of terror or exhaustion. 

A girl, after repeated faintings, was apparently dead, 
and was taken, as a subject, into the anatomical theatre 
of the ^^ Salpetriere,^^ at Paris. During the night, faint 
groans were heard in the theatre, but no search was 
made. In the morning, it was evident that the girl had 
attempted to disengage herself from the winding-sheet, one 
leg being thrust from off the tressles, and an arm resting 
on an adjoining table. 

A slave girl of Canton, named Leaning, apparently 
died. She was placed in a coffin, the Hd of which re- 
mained unfastened, that her parents might come and 
see the corpse. Three days after the apparent death, 
while the remains were being conveyed to the grave, a 
noise or voice was heard proceeding from the coffin, and 
on removing the covering, it was found the woman had 
come to life again. 

In 1838, at Tonnieus, in the Lower Garonne, as the 
graveman threw earth on a coffin he also heard groans. 
Much terrified, he ran away, and a crowd assembled. 
On opening the coffin, the face of the buried man was 
distorted, and he had disengaged his arms from the folds 
of his winding sheet. 

The Emperor Zeno was, as it is written, prematurely 



380 PREMATURE INTERMENT. 

buried; and^ when the body was soon after casually 
discovered^ it was found that he had^ to satisfy acute 
hunger^ eaten some flesh from his arm. 

AsTR. One might think that Master Ainsworth, from 
this record^ sketched the episode of the sexton and the 
old coffin in his ^^ Rookwood/^ The truth is equal to 
the fiction. 

Cast. When I was at Breslau, in 1835, (and this is 
not one of AstrophePs fictions^) a nun of the Ursuline 
Convent was placed in her coffin in the church. At 
midnight^ the sisters assembled to chaunt the vigils over 
the body of their sainted sister. While the holy hymn 
was echoing through the oratory, the nun arose, tottered 
to the altar, knelt before the cross, and prayed. The 
sisters with a cry of horror awoke the abbess ; and on 
her arrival, the nun again arose, and lay down in her 
coffin. The physician of the convent was speedily sum- 
moned, but, on his arrival, he found her dead. 

There can scarcely be drawn a scene, combining the 
sublime and beautiful of romance, in higher intensity 
than this. It was the spectral visitation of a seraph. 

Ida. Like many sublimities of nature, these mysteries 
have been profaned by unholy imitation ; as for instance, 
the reanimation of the nuns in the opera of " Robert le 
Diable.^^ But there is an awful romance mingled with 
the history of those melancholy creatures, from whose 
inanimate clay the immortal spirit was thought to have 
parted, still more impressive. That instinctive, that in- 
expressible dread, with which we contemplate a corpse, 
is nothing in comparison with that thrill of astonish- 
ment which overwhelms us, when a body becomes (as 
in the miraculous recall of Lazarus) reanimated ; when 
a spirit appears to visit us from the dead. Yet this is 
not fear, for we know it cannot injure us; it is a feeling 
that we are with something beyond ourselves spiritual, 
which had seemed to have endured a transfiguration. 



PREMATURE INTERMENT. 381 

and been admitted into the order of angelic beings. 
There must be something of the supernatural which 
creates this fearful wonder ; an impression on the heart 
that is an especial influence of the Deity. Else should 
we not behold with dread, instead of a sacred pleasure, 
the success of our efforts in cases of suspended anima- 
tion ? 

This visitation from another world is one of the surest 
indications of our spirituality ; and like the reanimation 
of soul and mind^ and consciousness^ from deep and 
undreaming sleep^ lighting up the body into brilliancy 
and beauty^ might drown a sceptic^s reasoning in a flood 
of holy faith, and overwhelm him with the belief of 
immortality. 

Cast. It is this combination of vitality and death — 
so seemingly a paradox — that forms the basis of many 
of our deepest romances ; as the ^^ Spectre Life in 
Death/^ in the Ancient Mariner, of the melancholy 
Coleridge, — himself a wild visionary of the first order. 
If I remember, he is writing of a spectre ship. — 

" Betwixt us and the sun. 

And straight the sim was fleck'd with bars — 

(Heaven's mother send us grace !) 

As if through a dungeon-grate he peer'd 

With broad and burning face. 

Alas ! (thought I, and my heart beat loud,) 

How fast she neers and neers. 

Are those her sails that glance in the sun, 

Like restless gossameres ? 

Are those her ribs, through which the sun 
Doth peer, as through a grate ? 
And is that woman all her crew ? 
Is that a Death — and are there two ? 
Is Death that woman's mate ? 

Her lips were red, her looks were free, 
Her locks were yellow as gold, 



382 RESUSCITATION. 

Her skin was as white as leprosy, 
The night-mare Life in Death was she, 
Who thicks man's blood with cold." 

Ev. It is melancholy that a noble mind should be 
so perverted by poppy-juice. And yet the Mahometan 
beats him hollow at this sort of burlesque. 

There is a fiction in Sale's notes to the "Koran.'^ 
During the building of his magnificent temple, King 
Solomon sleeps in death. He remains supported by 
his staff, on which he had been leaning, until a worm 
eats away the prop, and the body falls prostrate to the 
ground. 

But we need not go to the East for our specimens. 
Even in the year 1839, in our Emerald Isle of super- 
stition, they would have us believe a miracle of this 
kind. 

In a field near Lurgan, a man, called Farland, had 
received money from a widow, wherewith to pay her 
rent ; — this he failed to do. On her remonstrance and 
declaration, she was asked to name her witnesses. She 
answered, — ^^ No one but God and herself.'' " Then," 
rejoined the man, " your God was asleep at the time.'^ 
The attestation of three witnesses records, that he 
was instantly struck in a trance as he was resting on 
his spade, and in that attitude he had ever since con- 
tinued ! 

Cast. And is it not a blot on the page of science, 
that so many ill-fated creatures are thus, through an 
error, doomed to dissolution ? Say, gentle Evelyn, has 
not your philosophy discovered some mode of discern- 
ment between life and death, which would smile the 
philanthropist on to patient watching ? 

Ev. To a degree. But it were vain to offer here 
precepts for such discrimination, which, sooth to say, 
are not yet absolute. The rosy tint of complexion may 
remain for some time, and even perspiration may break 



RESUSCITATION. 383 

forth^ after death ; or the body may assume the most 
deathlike aspect^ and yet vitality is only in abeyance. 
Among our recoveries^ it is true, there are many spon- 
taneous rousings, and this especially if deep impression 
has been the cause of trance. 

Listen to the following, from a journal of 1834: — 
" The wife of Thomas Benson, livery-lace maker, of 
Great Queen Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields, being sud- 
denly taken ill, to all appearance expired ; and, when 
every symptom of life had fled, the body was duly laid 
out. On the following night, between nine and ten 
o'clock, whilst the undertaker was in the house receiv- 
ing instructions for the funeral, to the astonishment 
and terror of the whole family, Mrs. Benson came down 
stairs, having been in a trance nearly thirty hours. 
Her situation has so terribly shocked her, that but faint 
hopes are entertained of her recovery." 

It is melancholy to know how often these cases are 
abandoned to nature; but science may do much, and 
should do more, to relieve them ; although we possess 
not the wondrous phial of Renatus, nor have developed 
the creative mysteries of Prometheus or Frankenstein. 

Yet the recovery of Fran9ois de Civille, was almost 
as great a wonder. He was thrown, at the siege of 
Rouen, into insensibility. He was, in this state, carried 
home by his servant. During a week he became warm, 
but exhibited no other sign of life. He was, at this 
period, flung out of a window by the besiegers, and cast 
upon a dunghill, where he lay naked for three or four 
days. Yet, even after this, he was restored to life, 

AsTR. You confess the wonder, Evelyn, that is some 
concession ; you may, perchance, beheve another of 
equal interest. 

^^ My mother being sick to death of a fever three 
months after I was born, which was the occasion she 
nursed me no longer, her friends and servants thought. 



384 RESUSCITATION. 

to all outward appearance^ she was dead, and so almost 
two days and a night. But Dr. Winston coming to 
comfort my father, went into my mother^s room, and 
looking earnestly in her face, said, ^ She is so hand- 
some, and looks so lovely, I cannot think she is dead ;^ 
and suddenly took a lancet out of his pocket, and with 
it cut the sole of her foot, which bled. Upon this he 
immediately caused her to be laid upon the bed again, 
and to be rubbed, and such means, as she came to life, 
and opening her eyes, saw two of her kinswomen stand 
by her, my Lady Knolleys and my Lady Russell, both 
with great wide sleeves, as the fashion then was, and 
said, ^ Did not you promise me fifteen years, and are 
you come again ?^ which they not understanding, per- 
suaded her to keep her spirits quiet in that great weak- 
ness wherein she then was ; but some hours after she 
desired my father and Dr. Howlsworth might be left 
alone with her, to whom she said, ^ I will acquaint you, 
that during the time of my trance I was in great quiet, 
but in a place I could neither distinguish or describe ; 
but the sense of leaving my girl, who is dearer to me 
than all my children, remained a trouble upon my 
spirits. Suddenly I saw two by me clothed in long 
white garments, and methought I fell down upon my 
face upon the dust, and they asked me why I was so 
troubled in so great happiness. I rephed, O let me 
have the same grant given to Hezekiah, that I may hve 
fifteen years, to see my daughter a woman ; to which 
they answered. It is done, and then at that instant I 
awoke out of my trance.^ And Dr. Howlsworth did 
then affirm that that day she died made jtist fifteen 
years from that time.^^ 

I remember a story of the effect of deep impression 
on a sensitive mind : the sleep of a love-sick Juliet, 
without the entrancing draught of the friar. 

A young French lady in the Rue St. Honore, at 



RESUSCITATION. 385 

Paris^ was condemned by her father to a hated marriage 
while her heart was devoted to another. She fell into 
a trance^ and was buried. Under some strange influ- 
ence her lover opened her grave^ and she was revived, 
and married. Thus the romance of the ^* Beauty of 
Verona^^ was acted without its tragedy. 

I have heard, but where I recollect not, a story of 
another French lady, who was actually the subject of 
an anatomist. On the evidence of some faint signs of 
vitality, he not only restored the lady to life, but united 
himself to her in marriage. 

There is no doubt, also, that Rachael, Lady Russell, 
would have been buried alive, had not the devoted 
affection of her husband, and his constant visits to her 
coffin, prevented it. 

I read, too, that Shorigny, an hysterical girl in Paris, 
was watched daily by her physician, after he was assured 
by the friends that she was dead. On the sixth day, 
the cloth covering was seen to move, the eyes soon after 
opened, and she gradually recovered. 

Ev. It is one of the anomalies of our science, that 
similar causes will often produce opposite effects. We 
may be thrown into trance by fright ; and intense alarm 
may be the cause of recovery. I may relate an oriental 
anecdote as an analogy, which, however, I beg you to 
receive with some reservation. 

A Persian, at the siege of Sardis, was about to kill 
Croesus, whom he did not recognise. By his side was 
the king's dumb child, who, in a sudden paroxysm of 
agony, screamed out, " Kill not Croesus.'' From this 
instant (as it were a miracle), Herodotus writes, his 
speech was fully restored ! 

We learn from Bourgeois, in 1838, that a medical 
man, from the sudden influence of grief, sunk into a 
cataleptic state, but his consciousness never left him. 
The lamentations of his wife, the sympathetic condo- 

c c 



386 RESUSCITATION. 

lence of his medical friends, and the arrangements re- 
garding his funeral, were to him distinctly audible. He 
knew that he was in his coffin, and that there was a 
solemn procession following him to the grave. As the 
solemn words of '^ Earth to eartV^ were uttered, and 
the dust fell on his coffin lid, the consciousness of this, 
and his horror at his impending fate, burst the fetters of 
his icy trance — he shrieked aloud, and was saved. 

In the " Psychological Magazine^^ we read of a lady 
who fell into a state of catalepsy, after a violent nervous 
disorder. 

^^ It seemed to her, as if in a dream, that she was 
really dead. Yet she was perfectly conscious of all that 
happened around her in this dreadful state. She dis- 
tinctly heard her friends speaking, and lamenting her 
death, at the side of her coffin ; she felt them pull on 
her dead clothes, and lay her in it. This feehng pro- 
duced a mental anxiety which was indescribable. She 
tried to cry, but her soul was without power, and could 
not act on her body. She had the contradictory feel- 
ing, as if she were in her own body, and yet not in it, 
at one and the same time. It was equally impossible 
for her to stretch out her arm, or to open her eyes, as to 
cry, although she continually endeavoured to do so. 
The internal anguish of her mind was, however, at its 
utmost height, when the funeral hymns were sung, and 
when the hd of the coffin was about to be nailed on. 
The thought that she was to be buried alive was the 
first one which gave activity to her soul, and caused it 
to operate on her corporeal frame.^^ 

I have been assured that the soldier who has been 
placed in his grave by such an error, has been awoke in 
his coffin by the volley fired over him. 

Parallel with these are the instances in which vitality 
seemed to be instantly excited by acute pain. 

I remember the case of a cataleptic girl, related by 



RESUSCITATION. 387 

the Abbe Menon, who was doomed to dissection ; the 
first stroke of the scalpel awoke her, and she Hved. 

Cardinal SommagHa was not so fortunate. He fell 
into syncope from intense grief, and it was decided that 
he should be opened and embalmed. As the surgeon^s 
knife punctured the lungs, the heart throbbed, and the 
cardinal attempted to avert the knife with his hand ; 
but the die was cast, and he shortly died. 

The Abbe Prevost was also sacrificed in this way. 

As Vesalius, the physician of Philip II., was opening 
the thorax of a Spanish gentleman, the heart palpitated. 
Death also occurred here. VesaHus was brought before 
the Inquisition, but was pardoned. 

A gentleman was seized, apparently with apoplexy, 
while at cards. A vein was opened in both arms, but 
no blood flowed. He was placed in a room with two 
watchers, who slept, alas ! too long ; for in the morning 
the room was deluged vnth blood from the punctures, 
and his life was gone. 

These are indeed unhappy instances of the errors of 
omission and commission entailed on the fallibihty of 
science. I believe a French author, Bruhier, has col- 
lected fifty-two cases of persons buried alive, four which 
were dissected prematurely, fifty-three which recovered, 
and seventy-two which were falsely reported dead. 

AsTR. There is a solemn problem associated with 
this, on which I have often reflected, the solution of 
which, I presume, your philosophy cannot offer to us. 
At what moment would the mind cease to influence the 
body, were there no recovery from the trance ? I have 
sometimes felt a mysterious influence, apart, I am sure, 
from philosophy, that whispered me, the life, which I 
had watched in its ebb, was at length gone. Yet, of 
the transit of an immaterial spirit, although convinced 
of the sublime truth, it is certain we know nothing. 

Ev. Nothing demonstrative. It is not, however, when 
c c2 



388 RESUSCITATION. 

the body seems dead, for consciousness, or the systemic 
life, may for awhile be suspended by mere cold. But 
dissolution is that point, unknown to us, when the prin- 
ciple of life (whether that be the influence of arterial 
blood, or electricity, magnetism, or galvanism,) is not 
excitable — when molecular death has ensued ; not even 
irritability, that vis insita or vis nervosa of Haller, re- 
maining. Of course mind must instantly depart on the 
commencement of decomposition, the brain being then 
totally incompatible with mind. The stoics believed 
the soul to occupy the body until it was putrified, and 
resolved into its materia prima. 

AsTR. I once thought, Evelyn, that the difference in 
the tenacity of life in the man and the zoophyte might 
with some subtlety be explained on this principle — 
thus : That the life of a reasoning creature was in its 
soul ; that of an inferior animal in its spinal irritability. 
Thus, when man is decapitated, his soul is gone from 
him — he is dead ; but when vitality is in the vis nervea, 
as in the insect, life may exist without a head, that is, 
the organ of a soul. The butterfly will flutter, I am told, 
long after decapitation. 

Ev. The excito-motary principle illustrates this fact, 
without the requisition of such a notion ; and life, we 
know, may be artificially sustained for a time after de- 
capitation. The interesting physiology of the reflex 
actions of a nerve explains this, and all the terrific con- 
vulsions of galvanized bodies. 

Cast. I think I have a glimpse of your meaning, 
Evelyn. May we not believe, then, that there is truth 
in the affirmation, that Charlotte Corday^s cheeks 
blushed at her exposure after her decollation ? 

Ev. There is far more romance than truth, fair Cas- 
taly, in this story ; but I do believe the probability of a 
story almost as marvellous, that the lips of Mary Stuart 
prayed visibly after her head fell from her body. Soem- 



\ 



RESUSCITATION. 389 

mering has written, that if the open eyes of a decollated 
head be turned full on the sun, the lids will immediately 
close, but this of course without consciousness. 

Cast. And yet some learned men believed the head 
of Charlotte Corday sensible of its state, from this as- 
serted fact of its blushing. 

Ev. They should not have believed without complete 
evidence. Indeed, this question may now be deemed 
decided in the negative, by the experiments of a learned 
professor of Heidelburg, on the head of Sebastian Zink, 
decollated at Rastadt. On placing bitters on the tongue, 
and hallooing "pardon^^ in his ear at the instant of 
decapitation, it was proved that there was an utter 
insensibility to all. 

Ida. Then sensation is instantly destroyed. In this, 
as in all his dispensations, how is the mercy of the 
Deity displayed ! 

Ev. It is still a question with us, whether our phy- 
sical sensations on the point of dissolution are often so 
acute as they appear. 

Cabanis and the famous Guillotine declared their 
conviction that no pain was felt at the moment of or 
after decapitation. In the works of Lord Bacon, we 
read of one who was suspended till he was all but dead, 
and his declaration was that his suffering was a mere 
trifle. Cowper also left a manuscript, in which he 
states that in one of his three attempts at suicide, he 
hung himself over his door in the Temple, but that he 
did not suffer in the least. 

Ida. And in drowning ? 

Ev. While the medical committee of the Humane 
Society were framing those scientific rules which have 
rendered the process of resuscitation so successful, I 
remember especially one pale and melancholy girl, who 
glided in before us like a spectre. She had attempted 
suicide, but her intention was happily thwarted, after 



390 RESUSCITATION. 

she had been for many minutes in the water, and was 
apparently lifeless. 

True, the mental agony which prompts to such an 
act, will often overwhelm sensation ; but this creature 
was conscious of her act, and assured us that the sensa- 
tion of drowning was but an intense feeling of faintness 
preceding a sinking into insensibility , with a short spas- 
modic struggle ; an uneasiness rather than a pain. When 
Clarence therefore, recounting his dream, exclaims, — 

" My God, methought what pain it was to drown !" 

I believe, he should rather have referred his feelings to 
his recovery, if the words of the pale girl were true ; 
for, when consciousness and sensation are returning, 
the feeling is intense. Throughout the body, as it is 
recovering from apathetic numbness, the sense of re- 
turning circulation of the blood is terrible : an acute 
sensation of pins and needles in the brain and the marrow 
of the spine. No wonder, then, that these resuscitated 
beings will request that no efforts may be made, should 
they again be in the state of suspended animation. 
The sensation on being born is probably as acute as 
that on dissolution. 

Ida. Then there is consciousness ? 

Ev. The evidence of Dr. Adam Clarke will illustrate 
this interesting question. Yet I differ somewhat with 
him, regarding so perfect a consciousness during sub- 
mersion. In his life, you will see the following dia- 
logue with Dr. Lettsom, in which Clarke describes his 
own case of immersion : 

" Dr. Lettsom said, — ' Of all that I have seen re- 
stored, or questioned afterwards, I never found one who 
had the smallest recollection of any thing that passed, 
from the moment they went under water, till the time 
in which they were restored to life and thought.' Dr. 
Clarke answered Dr. L., — ' I knew a case to the con- 



RESUSCITATION. 391 

trary.' ^ Did you, indeed ?^ ^ Yes, Dr. h., and the case 
was my own. I was once drowned.^ And then related 
the circumstances, and added, — ' I saw my danger, but 
thought the mare would swim, and I knew I could ride 
when we were overwhelmed. It appeared to me, that I 
had gone to the bottom with my eyes open. At first, I 
thought I saw the bottom clearly, and then felt neither 
apprehension nor pain ; on the contrary, I felt as if I 
had been in the most delightful situation; my mind 
was tranquil and uncommonly happy. I felt as if in 
Paradise, and yet I do not recollect that I saw any per- 
son; the impressions of happiness seemed not to be 
derived from any thing around me, but from the state 
of my mind. And yet I had a general apprehension of 
pleasing objects ; and I cannot recollect that any thing 
appeared defined, nor did my eye take in any object^ 
only I had a general impression of a green colour, as of 
fields or gardens. But my happiness did not arise from 
these, but appeared to consist merely in the tranquil, 
indescribably tranquil, state of my mind. By and by, 
I seemed to awake as out of a slumber, and felt unut- 
terable pain and difficulty of breathing; and now I 
found I had been carried by a strong wave, and left in 
very shallow water upon the shore, and the pain I felt 
was occasioned by the air once more inflating my lungs 
and producing respiration. How long I had been 
under water I cannot tell ; it may however be guessed 
at by this circumstance : when restored to the power of 
reflection, I looked for the mare, and saw her walking 
leisurely down shore towards home, then about half a 
mile distant from the place where we were submerged. 
Now, I aver, — 1st. That in being drowned I felt no 
pain ; — 2nd. That I did not, for a simple moment, lose 
my consciousness ; — 3rd. I felt indescribably happy, 
and, though dead as to the total suspension of all 
the functions of life, yet I felt no pain in dying ; and 



392 RESUSCITATION. 

I take for granted, from this circumstance, those who 
die by drowning feel no pain, and that probably it 
is the easiest of aU deaths; — 4th. That I felt no pain 
till once more exposed to the action of the atmo- 
spheric air, and then I felt great pain and anguish 
in returning to life, which anguish, had I continued 
under water, I should have never felt ; — 5th. That 
animation must have been totally suspended from 
the time I must have been under water, which time 
might be in some measure ascertained by the distance 
the mare was from the place of my submersion, which 
was at least half a mile, and she was not, when I first 
observed her, making any speed ; — 6th. Whether there 
were any thing preternatural in my escape, I cannot 
tell ; or whether a ground swell had not, in a merely 
natural way, borne me to the shore, and the retroces- 
sion of the tide (for it was then ebbing), left me exposed 
to the open air, I cannot tell. My preservation must 
have been the effect of natural causes ; and yet it ap- 
pears to be more rational to attribute it to a superior 
agency. Here then. Dr. L., is a case widely different, 
it appears, from those you have witnessed, and which 
argues very Httle for the modish doctrine of the mate- 
riaUty of the soul.' Dr. Lettsom appeared puzzled with 
this relation, but did not attempt to make any remarks 
on it.'' 

And well he might; for if animation were totally 
suspended, consciousness would have been suspended 
also. 



TRANSMIGRATION.— ANALYSIS OF TRANCE. 



" Thou Shalt hold the opinion of Pythagoras, ere I will allow of thy wits; 
and fear to kill a woodcock, lest thou dispossess the soul of thy grandam." 

Twelfth Night. 

" Through all thy veins shall run 
A cold and drowsy humour, which shall seize 
Each vital spirit." Romeo and Juliet. 



AsTR. You have granted me more than you desire^ dear 
Evelyn. If life be restored, it had never deserted the 
body, and yet the mind had deserted it. 

The mind and body, then, are both independent of 
each other. From this truth, a metaphysical question 
of deep and wondrous interest arises. In what condition 
does the mind exist, during so long a period, uninfluencing 
and uninfluenced by the power of perception? I remem- 
ber searching for some elucidation of this mystery 
among those ghost-stories of the Hebrews, founded on 
the '^ purgatorie of souls^^ in Stehelin's ^' Traditions of 
the Jews," but I rose from my reading unenUghtened. 

Ida. And ever will, Astrophel. Profane curiosity 
must fail in such a study ; adoration alone can sanctify 
this mystic question, on which theologians and philoso- 
phers, even those devoutly confident in the sublime 
truths of immortality, have so essentially diiFered. 

Like Astrophel, Paley inquires where is the soul 



394 TRANSMIGRATION. 

during suspended vitality? and Priestly, where when 
the body was created ? Hume, with the subtlety of a 
sceptic, asks how can the soul long be the same, seeing 
that, Hke the body, its particles are constantly chang- 
ing ? While Glanville thinks himself a wondrous wight, 
as he prates of its ^^ essential spissitude, a something that 
is more subtle than body, contracting itself into a less 
ubi:' 

Were this sublime secret fathomable by the deepest 
intellect, then would be unfolded things above, which 
are ordained to be ever mysteries to creatures on earth ; 
such as the future existence of the spirit, and the nature 
of Paradise. 

Although revelation has given us glimpses, enough to 
satisfy humble devotion, what mind can decide on the 
exact nature and changes of its own future state ? The 
negative answer is at once returned by the variety of 
these learned opinions : — That the soul is, immediately 
after death, submitted to its reward or punishment ; — 
That its state after death is one of half happiness or 
misery, until it be again joined to its body on the resur- 
rection ; and then it shall enjoy or suffer the extremes of 
felicity or torment ; — That the soul rests in quiet un- 
consciousness until the day of judgment ; — ^And lastly, 
that souls are purified by purgatory and comparative 
suffering, and then are admitted into the realms of 
perpetual enjoyment. 

AsTR. Is it not strange that in this notion of purga- 
tory, with slight variations, pagans, and Romanists, and 
Egyptians, and Brahmins, so nearly accord ? In the 
creed of the Brahmins, there is something of sublimity, 
whatever may be their error, and Ida will not chide, if 
I repeat the essence of their creed, which Robertson 
has gathered from the '^^ Baghvat Geeta.^^ 

" Every intelhgent nature, particularly the souls of 
men, they conceived to be portions separated from this 



TRANSMIGRATION. 395 

great spirit ; to which, after fulfilling their destiny on 
earth, and attaining a proper degree of purity, they 
would be again reunited. In order to efface the stains 
with which a soul, during its residence on earth, has 
been defiled by the indulgence of sensual and corrupt 
appetites, they taught that it must pass, in a long suc- 
cession of transmigrations, through the bodies of dif- 
ferent animals, until, by what it suffers and what it 
leaves in the various forms of its existence, it shall be 
so thoroughly refined from all pollution, as to be 
rendered meet for being absorbed into the divine es- 
sence, and returns, like a drop, into that unbounded 
ocean from which it originally issued.^^ 

Aristotle, in taking up this notion of transmigration 
in his book "De Anima,^^ says that ^^the soul was 
always joined to a body, sometimes to one, sometimes to 
another.^^ And from this idea were taken the stories 
of Fadlallah and the Dervis, in the ^^ Spectator,^^ of the 
^^ Transmigrations of Indus,^^ and the beautiful fable of 
" Psyche,^^ or the soul, which when a body died, could 
not live alone on earth, and so crept into another. 
Herodotus, in the second book of his history, has some 
allusions to the Egyptian creed ; and, indeed, the fear of 
this transmigration was the origin of mummies among 
the Copts. Their belief that the soul (the immortality 
of which they very early, if not the first, decided,) could 
not leave the body when entire, induced them to pre- 
serve that body as long as possible ; and the mummy 
unroUers and hieroglyphic readers must commit sad 
sacrilege, by exposing their sacred dust to the decom- 
position of air. 

When the body was dissolved, however, the soul 
entered that of some animal that instant born; and 
profane commentators have, on this creed, presumed to 
explain the sacred story of the '' banishment and savage 
life of Nebuchadnezzar." At the end of 30,000 years. 



396 TRANSMIGRATION. 

it again entered that of a man ; and it is likely that 
their object in embalming was, to have the soul re-enter 
the same body from choice and habit. 

Simonides, four hundred years after the siege of Troy, 
ungallantly reversed this doctrine, deciding that " the 
souls of women were formed of the principles and 
elements of brutes." The Pythagorean system was, if 
not more courteous, at least more just. 

" Thus all things are but altered, nothing dies ; 
And here and there th' embodied spirit flies. 
By time, or force, or sickness, dispossess'd. 
And lodges, where it lights, in bird or beast ; 
Or hunts without, till ready limbs it find. 
And actuates those according to their kind. 
From tenement to tenement is toss'd. 
The soul is still the same, the figure only lost." 

This is from Dryden^s translation of Chaucer. 

And Burton's record is as follows : 

^^ The Pythagoreans defend Metempsychosis and Palin- 
genesia, that souls go from one body to another, epotd 
prius Lethes nudd, as men into wolves, beares, dogs, 
hogs, as they were inclined in their lives, or participated 
in conditions : 

* inqueferlnas 

Possumm ire domm pecudumqm in corpora condiJ 

" Lucian's cock was first Euphorbus, a captaine : 

* Ille ego (nam tneminij Trojani tempore belli 
Panthoides Euphorbus eram.' " 

And Plato, in Timseus, and in Phaedo — 

Ev. Enough of Plato, dear Astrophel; or beUeve, 
with me, that his philosophy on this point was merely 
figurative of the similarity of mind, or genius, or feature, 
between the dead and the living ; — as it was said of old, 
that the soul of Raphael had transmigrated to the body 



TRANSMIGRATION. 397 

of Francesco Mazzola (Parmegiano), because his style 
a^d personal beauty so closely resembled those of the 
all but divine master of his art. 

And pray what was the gist of that special astrono- 
mer, who affirmed that he ^^ saw something written in 
the moon?^^ — A wild romance only? No, forsooth. 
Pythagoras may classically vociferate — 

" errat, et illinc, 

Hue venit, hine illuc, et quoslibet occupat artus 
Spiritus : eque feris humana in corpora transit, 
Inque feras noster." 

But read further, and you will find the high moral to 
be a severe injunction against flesh-eating : 

" Then let not piety be put to flight, 
To please the taste of glutton appetite ; 
But suffer irniate souls secure to dwell. 
Lest from their seats your parents you expel : 
With rabid hunger feed upon your kmd, 
Or from a beast dislodge a brother's mind." 

Think you this injunction will be obeyed, in the face of 
the " Almanac des Gourmands ?" 

Ida. Evelyn is severe. May I tell him that, among 
the records of the East, he will find incidents blended 
with this idea which may almost consecrate the creed 
of a Pagan. As the honey is hung close to the poisoned 
sting of the bee, there may be a bright spot to illumi- 
nate the gloomy annals of superstition. The very belief 
in transmigration may impart an atom of mercy, even 
to an infidel ; and where superstition, shorn of the light 
of Christianity, must prevail, it were better sure to foster 
that notion which may, even in one little sentiment, 
half humanize the heart. 

Listen to this contrast, between some orient sects, 
along the eastern shores of Hindostan. The daughters 
of Guzzerat fold their infants to their bosoms drugged 



398 TRANSMIGRATION. 

with opium ; and when the babe is thus poisoned, the 
Hindu girl will answer with a languid and seeming 
innocent smile, ^'^It is not difficult to blast a flower- 
bud.'^ 

Then the Kurrada Brahmins (as we read in the 
^^ Rudhiradhyaya'^), believing themselves the agents of 
Vishara Boot, the spirit of poison, sacrifice the pundits 
to their vampire goddess, Maha-Lackshmi. 

Equally blind, yet more happy in the nature of their 
superstition, are the Shravuch Banians, or the prose- 
lytes of Jena. The Yati, or officiating priest of this 
order, in purifying the temples, sweeps the floor with 
the Raju-hurrun, a broom of cotton-threads, lest hap- 
less one Uttle insect may be destroyed. And this we 
may believe, from the creed of transmigration being 
influential among these people. Sir Paul Rycaut also, 
in his oriental history, informs us of parallel incidents 
among the devout Mahomedans, who, believing that in 
the body of a brute may reside the soul of a departed 
relative, ransom, with their gold, many a bird that 
would otherwise flutter away its captivity in a cage. 

Cast. I will not flout your praises, Ida ; but, in our 
own island, this illusion has rather led to captivity. I 
remember the story of a lady, hving in Worcestershire, 
who, under the innocent delusion that her daughters 
were changed into singing-birds, hung her pew in the 
cathedral with cages of goldfinches and linnets. And 
Lord Orford, in his '^ Reminiscences,^' thus records the 
monomania of the Duchess of Kendal : 

" In a tender mood, he (King George) promised the 
duchess that if she survived him, and it were possible 
for the departed to return to this world, he would make 
her a visit. The duchess, on his death, so much ex- 
pected the accomplishment of that engagement, that a 
large raven, or some black fowl, flying into one of the 
windows of her villa, at Isleworth, she was persuaded 



ANALYSIS OF TRANCE AND ITS SYNONYMES. 399 

it was the soul of her departed monarch so accoutred^ 
and received and treated it with all the respect and ten- 
derness of duty^ till the royal bird, or she, took the last 
flight/^ 

AsTR. You spoke of the absolute senselessness of 
trance ; and yet there were some hints of the awakening 
power of fear. Is this consistent ? 

Ev. I expected your objection. In the cases of per- 
fect catalepsy, the brain is not conscious of its mind, 
or if the mind be active, there is no assurance of its acti- 
vity. But, as its faculties are awakened, it usually be- 
gins to work exactly where it left off; — one of the most 
imposing proofs, both of a separate existence during 
life, and of our bodies^ unconsciousness of this transient 
disunion. 

AsTR. I may own, Evelyn, that your illustrations of 
our questions, in despite of some straining at explana- 
tion, carry, on many points, conviction to my own 
mind, but not on all. There is another question equally 
interesting with the former. How is vitality preserved 
during this protracted abstinence ? 

Ev. Remember, dear Astrophel, my confession, that 
there are inexplicable mysteries. But, to the point of 
your last question. We are aware of the long period 
during which the body may fast after shipwreck, or 
beneath a fallen cliff, or even on the incarceration of 
animals for the purpose of experiment. Thus Captain 
Bligh, and seventeen persons, sailed four thousand 
miles in an open boat, with a small bird occasionally for 
the food of all. The Juno^s crew, wrecked off Aracan, 
existed twenty-three days without food ; and the wreck 
of the Medusa is fresh in our memories. Here the 
body feeds on its own fat, shrinking until that supply is 
lost, and then it dies. 

I might relate to you the very impressive stories of 
Anne Moore, of Tutbury ; of Janet M^Cleod, told by 

6 



400 ANALYSIS OF TRANCE 

Dr. Mackenzie ; and many strange facts related by Dr. 
Willan^ Sir William Hamilton, and others. 

I might refer you to legends, of which I can scarcely 
press for your belief. As the strange but authenticated 
story of Anna Garbero, of Racconiggi, forty miles from 
Turin, who existed without nutrition for two years, be- 
coming like a shrivelled mummy. And that of Eve 
Hergen, who existed thirteen years upon the odour of 
flowers ! But even with that incredulous frown of 
AstrophePs, and that faint smile of thine, fair Castaly, 
let me at once to my explanations. 

In natural sleep the functions of the body are im- 
peded. One of these is digestion. As there is httle 
waste of the system there is little necessity for repletion, 
and life can be supported by a very slight action of the 
heart, a minute current of blood; hke the slender 
vitality of infants, who, even in a state of health, seem 
frequently scarcely to breathe. The circulation is ma- 
terially influenced in sleep, the pulse being slower and 
more feeble than during waking ; the relaxation of the 
cutaneous vessels inducing frequent perspiration, espe- 
cially in debilitated systems, and in the last stages of 
adynamic fevers. 

The body of the cataleptic patient descends to the 
condition of less complex animal hfe, in which there 
appears a much greater simpHcity of organization ; and 
we well know, as we descend in the scale of creation, 
towards the cold-blooded single-hearted animals, and 
especially if we reach the zoophyte, in how exact a pro- 
portion to this simplicity of structure is the tenacity of 
life increased. '^ Fish,^^ says Sir John Franklin, " were 
taken out of the nets frozen, and became a solid mass of 
ice, being by a blow of a hatchet easily split open; 
they, however, recovered their vitality on being thawed.^' 

A course of systematic abstinence will enable us, if 
we wished it, to endure extreme privations, which a 



AND ITS SYNONYMES. 401 

high feeder would soon sink under ; and this is probably 
the disciphne adopted by the fakirs of India^ who 
fast so long under the influence of superstitious de- 
votion. 

Vaillant^s spider lived without food nearly one year ; 
John Hunter's toad fourteen months; land tortoises 
eighteen months; a beetle three years; and two ser- 
pents, according to Shaw, five years ; an antelope has 
survived twenty days without food; some dogs forty 
days ; an eagle 23 days. 

Now all animals fall asleep at certain temperatures, 
which they cannot resist, but the common effect of 
extreme cold is death. Dr. Solander was yielding to 
the influence of intense cold in Terra del Fuego, but was 
saved by the firmness of Sir Joseph Banks. Richmond, 
the black, lay down on the snow to sleep, and died. 

There is a close analogy between this state and the 
hybernation of animals, although the causes are not 
similar. AnimalculfB often become torpid for lack of 
moisture, and, even after the lapse of twenty-seven 
years, have been revivified by water. The ^vaoMfurcu- 
lar'ia anastobea will repeatedly become animated and 
lively by a single drop of water, its previous condition 
being completely quiescent. The snail, the alligator, 
indeed most of the ophidian and saurian reptiles, assume 
the torpid state in a period of extreme drought; and 
Humboldt states this also of the centenes solosus, a 
Madagascar hedgehog. 

This hybernation of animals, as of the marmot and 
the dormouse, resembles the deep sleep arising from 
cold of a certain degree ; for if this be intense, they will 
sometimes be momentarily roused from it. They may 
be constantly kept awake by heat and powerful light. 

Thus hybernation and the sleep of plants take place 
from the withdrawal of stimuli ; heat being the animal — 
light the vegetable stimulus. 

Dd 



402 ANALYSIS OF TRANCE 

Cast. The sleep of plants ? a fiction surely ! 

Ev. Nay^ a truth. The irritability of plants is ex- 
cited by their peculiar stimulus; when this is with- 
drawn^ they fall to sleep. Most of the discous flowers 
turn to the sun in his course^ as the sun-flower, the 
helianthus, and the croton. The acacia leaves at noon 
point towards the zenith. The tamarind, the oxalis, and 
the trefoil, fold their leaves on the exclusion of light. 
The evening primrose shuts its blossom at sunset, while 
that minion of the moon, the night-blowing cactus, then 
only begins to bloom ; perhaps like the owl, and goat- 
sucker, and bat, who find the sun too powerful an 
excitant. 

Vegetables may be put asleep by the withdrawal of 
proper stimulus, — the exclusion of this light. But this 
is a law of nature, and ordained for a special purpose. 
It is chiefly during fructification ; the leaves at night 
folding round the flowers and seed-vessels, to protect 
them from the chilling blight of the night cold, which 
would congeal their juices. In this condition of the 
plant its irritability ceases, but the circulation of its sap- 
vessels is not suspended. Its vitality continues, but if 
the exercise of its peculiar phenomena be long discon- 
tinued, it will fade and die. Now the vis insita of the 
muscle resembles vegetable irritability ; and, as this is 
lost and sensibility suspended, the body is indeed in a 
condition of vegetable sleep ; for vegetables have not 
of course sensation, although the Darwinian romance 
would endow the dioncea, the hedysarum, and the mi- 
mosa with sensibility, and all the blossom-beauties of 
Flora with the fervour of sexual passion. Trance then 
is caused by the removal of a stimulus. As somnambu- 
lism may result from a redundancy of nervous energy, 
trance and catalepsy, as well as incubus, seem to arise 
from an inefficient secretion or supply of this quality, in 
whatever it may consist, or an impediment to its trans- 



AND ITS SYNONYMES. 403 

mission from the sensorium or brain to the expansion of 
a nerve. Thus the motive power of a muscle is in these 
diseases suspended, which inparalysis may he permanently 
impaired or destroyed. 

To describe this state^ I must abound in negatives. 
The brain is not conscious : there is no sensation. Even 
the marrow by its reflect faculty does not excite a muscle : 
there is no action : the mind has no cognizance : the 
body is for a time paralyzed. What is there then which 
may be termed hfe ? merely involuntary circulation and 
gentle breathing. In this condition also there is a con- 
gestion of dark blood about the brain and in the right 
side of the heart ; the circulation being reduced to an 
extreme lentor or sluggishness, while in real asphyxia 
there is a total stagnation. 

I have done with minute pathology: as there are 
however two diseases, epilepsy and insanity, which may 
be the result of catalepsy, I may offer a precept on the 
point. The propensity to trance cannot suddenly be 
averted, but the state of the body and mind are impor- 
tant studies for our treatment. Melancholy and apathy 
are the features of the mind of the cataleptic, and 
languor and faulty secretions the symptoms of the body. 
Cheerful society, sympathy w4th suffering, but firmness 
in resisting sloth and erroneous fancies, and the direc- 
tion of the patient's mind to moral recreations, compre- 
hend the sum of our mental treatment. 

It is equally essential to ensure regulation of the 
secretions, especially those of the liver. We should 
employ cupping from the nape of the neck, if there be 
pain, or heat, or fulness of the head, and constant but 
gentle exercise. The head should not be low during 
sleep, nor should food be taken within two hours of 
retiring to rest. I believe obedience to these slight 
precepts will frequently mitigate, perhaps in the end 
avert the attacks, especially if they have arisen from 

Dd2 



404 ANALYSIS OF TRANCE AND ITS SYNONYMES. 

diseased conditions of the body^ or gloomy or depraved 
studies^ and deep contemplation. 

The most simple or unconnected form of catalepsy^ is 
that most likely to end in madness. Perhaps^ too^ in 
deep and gloomy subjects^ which begin by absorbing 
mind and sense^ the end is thus; so that cataleptic 
abstraction is but the reverie or foretaste of mania. 

As to suspected cases of still existing vitahty : where 
there is plethora, I would employ bleedings or cuppings 
insufflation, Galvanism; and I should not in extreme 
cases fear acupuncture of the heart, and galvanic shocks 
then transmitted through the needle. Beclard^ in ^^ La 
Pitie,'' in Paris, allows the needle to remain three or 
four minutes and then withdraws it, and I have learned 
from my oriental friends, that the Chinese practice this 
mode extensively. 



MESMERISM. 



*' Thus smiling, as some fly had tickled slumber, 
Not as Death's dart, being laugh'd at." 

Cymbehne. 

" By some illusion see thou bring her here, 
I'll charm his eyes against she doth appear." 

" Such tricks hath strong imagination." 

Midsummer Night's Dream. 



Ida. You are very formidable creatures, Evelyn, if you 
can touch and wound the heart of a sensitive girl so 
easily ; we must be wary, dear Castaly. It must be a 
desperate case that justifies so desperate a remedy ; yet, 
with all this danger, the magi of our day will, as I have 
heard, induce by their art this very state of trance. 

AsTR. Magnetic sleep. If the phenomena of this 
animal magnetism be not a mystery, it is at least a curi- 
osity. And yet Evelyn will tell us that they, too, obey 
the common laws of our nature. I believe, however, 
there are stories of most strange and novel interest, be- 
yond the scope even of his philosophy. 

Ev. The hand of a magnetiser seems, I confess, to 
effect a wonder ; but your challenge will be fatal to you, 
Astrophel. In this same question of animal magnetism 
we may discover the spring of all your mysteries. The 
close analogies between the natural and imparted phe- 



406 MESMERISM. 

nomena of trance and magnetic sleep and somnambulism, 
and somnambulic blindness, and magnetic ecstacy ; even 
the frauds of lucid vision and clairvoyance, and the 
vaunted gift of prophetic divination, with the explana- 
tion of some, and the refutation of others, will dispel the 
most subtle arguments in proof of divine influence ; 
seeing that the process is conducted by men of mortal 
mould, who claim no merit even for the possession of 
occult learning. 

Cast. Mercy, dearest Evelyn, mercy. No more phi- 
losophy to-night. The smile of yon planet Venus, 
that was twinkling from out its cerulean blue, is veiled 
in a cloud ; for our cold discourse is treason to its in- 
fluence. Be ready with your stories, Astrophel. 

Ev. The history of Mesmerism is a romance in itself, 
dear Castaly. If I invade not the province of Astrophel, 
I will, as some apology for my dull prosing, sketch its 
progress by way of episode. 

You must know, then, that it was MaximiHan Holl 
who first, from the influence of his magnets on the 
body, imparted the practical idea of animal magnetism 
to Mesmer, who had already written his inaugural 
thesis, at Vienna, on '' Planetary Influence,^^ and had 
laid down this unblushing aphorism : '' There is one 
health, one disease, one remedy, and one physician, and 
that physician am I.^^ His immediate proselytes were 
Deslon at Paris, and Gmelin at Heilbronne, and Reicke 
at Stutgard, and Kluge at Berlin. Encouraged by the 
Swedenborgian tenets, this magic brought immense re- 
venue into the purses of Mainanduc in England, and 
the rest of its revivers ; so that one hundred guineas 
were given for a course of lectures and experiments, 
and fifteen guineas for a consultation and the imparting 
of its influence. 

In after times Miss Prescott, among others, gained 
great fame in the art ; but De Lauterbourg was one of 



MESMERISM. 407 

its most popular professors. Three thousand patients, 
it is said, were often waiting for the magnetic influence 
about his house at Hammersmith. 

In 1784 an ordonnance of the French king confirmed 
Mesmer in his working of these apparent miracles. By 
tractions on the body, either with the hand or by sub- 
stances magnetized with his " imponderable fluid/^ by 
champooing, and the accompaniment of sweet music, a 
state of enchantment of the senses was induced. Con- 
vulsions and mania were often excited in the " Hall of 
Crisis,^' which was lined by soft cushions to protect 
the convulsionaries. These paroxysms and tempests of 
the brain Mesmer seemed to control, like a second 
Prospero, with his wand of enchantment, gliding, in 
robes of silk, among the multitude of devotees, whom 
novelty and voluptuousness had attracted to his shrine. 

To study and report on these mysteries, commissioners 
were appointed by the ^^ Faculty of Medicine,^^ by the 
" Academy of Sciences,^^ and by the " Royal Society of 
Medicine.^^ These savans referred all to the influence 
of imagination, or of emotion in sensitive systems ; and 
that there must be this sensitive predisposition is often 
proved, for idiots, and those who have been blindfold, 
and unconscious children, remain uninfluenced, although 
it is declared by one that he magnetized an idiot baby ! 

I must observe, that before the commissions in 
Paris, especially that of which Franklin was a member, 
not the slightest influence was observed; and the ex- 
periments of Monsieur Berner, who was the chief mani- 
pulator, were a perfect failure, especially in regard to 
the clairvoyance. 

Astrophel reminds me by his frown 

AsTR. That magnetic power is not granted to all ; 
that all possess not the essential qualities of mind and 
body. It was affirmed that the operator must have his 
mind abstracted, and teeming with affection and bene- 

6 



408 MESMERISM. 

volence towards his patients ; must believe himself a very 
magnet, and feel a desire of benefiting mankind. Thus a 
sympathy, or incorporation of atmospheres, was induced, 
by which disease was influenced ; and even in persons 
distant from each other, by an intensity of thought the 
patient tasted, smelt, or heard, the flavours, odours, or 
sounds which at that moment affected the senses of the 
operator. The magnetizer must thus be confident that, 
by his will, he can pass his whole nervous energy into his 
patient. It is essential, also, that the mind of the patient 
should have a corresponding willingness to be mag- 
netized. 

Ev. And this congenial platonism is sometimes so 
intense, that offers of magnetic marriage are made by 
the ecstatic ladies to their magnetizers, even though it 
may not be leap-year, on the plea that the loneliness of 
magnetic widowhood distressed them, and that the pos- 
session of a sleeping partner was better than sleeping 
alone. 

Under this interesting disposition for magnetic union, 
the eyes of the maiden being fixed on the magnetizer 
intensely, his hands were passed before her body, his 
fingers thus forming natural conductors, by which the 
magnetic fluid w^as conveyed from the positive to the 
negative magnetic body. Then came the wonders of 
this influence. The patient was warmed by the bene- 
volence of the magnetizer, who felt an aura or tingling 
in the part corresponding to any painful part of the 
patient^s body which was reheved or cured. Indeed, 
Bertrand assures us that many told him they saw a blue 
fluid streaming from his fingers when he magnetized 
them. 

The secret of this is closely analogous to the effect of 
brooding over sorrow : the mind of the patient is con- 
centrated on the spot to which the passes are directed ; 
and, as we know that disease can be excited thus by 



MESMERISM. 409 

imagination (especially in the hypochondriac), so it is a 
truth that this concentration may remove disease and 
pain, especially by the superaddition of faith. 

AsTR. But the magnetizer, as they said, was not 
always in a state to operate, and required a certain 
training. So it was observed that Casper Hauser's cat 
did not follow him after he had eaten meat ; his mag- 
netic and somnambulant qualities were destroyed by 
animal food, although they were so abundant in his 
wilder state, — as his history will thus illustrate to those 
who beheve it : 

^^ As I came into the room, and the door of the de- 
ceased person was opened, which I did not know, I felt 
a sudden dragging on both sides of my breast, as if any 
one wished to pull me into the room. As I went on 
and proceeded towards the sick person, a very strong 
breath blew on me from behind, and the pulling which 
I felt before in my breast I now felt in my shoulders. 
I went towards the window ; the sick person followed 
me. At the time that I wished to ask a question of 
Mr. Von Gutter, I felt a trembling in my left foot, and 
it became unwell. She went back again, and that trem- 
bling left me. She seated herself under the canopy and 
said, ^ Will not the gentleman sit down V Hereupon 
Mr. Professor Hensler said to her, she should see me. 
So as she drew nigh to me, within two or three steps, I 
was still more unwell than before, and I felt pains in 
all my limbs. Mr. Professor Hensler told her that I 
was the man who had been wounded (that is, by the 
attempt which had been made to assassinate him) ; at 
the same time she noticed my scar, and pointed towards 
it ; then came the air strong upon my forehead, and I 
felt pain in it, also my left foot began to tremble 
greatly. The sick person seated herself under the 
canopy, and said that she was ill ; and I also said that 
I was so unwell that I must sit down. I sat down in 



410 MESMERISM. 

the other room : now the other foot began to twitter. 
Although Mr. Von Gutter held my knees^ I could not 
keep them still. Now a violent beating of my heart 
came on me, and there was a heat in all my body : that 
beating of the heart left me afterwards ; and I had a 
twittering in my left arm, which ceased after some 
minutes, and I was again something better. This con- 
dition lasted until the next morning, then I had a head- 
ache again and a twittering in all my limbs, still not so 
violent. In the afternoon, about three o'clock, it came 
again something less, and left me earlier ; then I was 
quite well again." 

" The Somnambulist was greatly affected by the pre- 
sence of Hauser. I heard that, afterwards, when she 
was asleep, she had said these words, — ^ That was a 
hard struggle for me.' She felt indisposition from this 
process even on the next day.'' 

Ev. The first sensation from magnetism is usually 
that of slight vertigo, — a state of musing or reverie suc- 
ceeding, the mind being lulled into abstraction, as it is 
by the rippling of water, the busy hum of bees, or the 
murmuring of the ^olian-harp. I would explain this 
feeling by the term, confusion of the senses ; for a cer- 
tain period must elapse ere an external object make an 
impression on the mind. When, therefore, objects or 
sounds become extremely rapid, the perception is con- 
fused, and the mind, left as it were to itself, cannot fol- 
low the impressions so as to associate them, and thus 
the magnetic ecstacy ensues. 

AsTR. But Monsieur de Paysegur, who first excited 
magnetic somnambulism, magnetized trees and ropes, by 
which he converted those who clung to them into sleep- 
walkers. Dr. Elliotson, also, mesmerized a sovereign, 
by merely looking on it ; and a girl, who intuitively se- 
lected it from a heap of others, was instantly struck with 
coma. 



MESMERISM. 411 

Ev. The last is a very frail experiment. Paysegur 
often failed in his illustrations^ and then the cunning 
juggler explained this^ by affirming that the trees 
counter-magnetized each other. Now, whatever may 
be the influence imparted by this traction, the pheno- 
mena of excited somnambulism are similar precisely to 
those spontaneously occurring. Magnetic sleep, or 
ecstasis, is its precursor; and there is a total uncon- 
sciousness of it when awake. Here is one of those 
close analogies that are the most potent arguments on 
which the question of magnetism rests. For, in all the 
states alluded to, the interval of ecstacy is a blank. And, 
as in the cases of intense alarm, as you remember, the 
mesmeric ecstacy will cause a sensitive girl to forget the 
present, while the scenes of youth and infancy pass 
vividly before her memory. 

Now the effects of the passes of magnetism are re- 
ferred to six degrees, — the chief conditions being those 
of sleep, somnambulism, and clairvoyance. The essence 
of the last, it seems, is combined with a blending of 
one^s own feeling and nature with those of others ; — a 
reuniting, in fact, of body and soul once separated from 
that individual whole, which some philosophers, as 
Hecker, believed the whole human race to be. You 
observe my fidelity, Astrophel. 

It must be confessed, that some of the experiments 
at which I have myself assisted exhibit very strange 
results. In some, there is the propensity to chatter 
nonsense, — a system of one form of hysteria, of which 
the analogy is perfect. One little jade created much 
amusement, by inserting supernumerary syllables, thus 
— o^^OYwayiumwhatsij, 

The insensibility of the nostril to the most powerful 
ammonia is a very imposing fact; one which must strike 
us more than that of insensibility of the eye to light, or 
the ear to sound. For the faculty of perception may 



412 MESMERISM. 

be often suspended in either of those organs of sense, 
if attention be powerfully diverted to another point, or, 
as it is by the abstraction of magnetic ecstacy, not 
directed to any. 

So that I do not wonder when thoughtless proselytes 
believe these effects to be miraculous, or credit the as- 
sertions of Pereaud, in his ^^ Antidcemon of Mascon'^ 
that, — " The devil causeth witches to fall into ecstacies, 
so that a man would say their souls were out of their 
body/^ Or those of Bodin, in his " Theatre of Uni- 
versal Nature^"* that ^^ those that are rapt of the devil 
feel neither stripes nor cuttings/^ 

So that the honour of the magnetic monomania must 
at last be conceded to the fallen angel. 

Ida. And are all these wonders worked only to excite 
curiosity ? 

AsTR. I believe there is some good in it. Is it not 
certain, that during this state of magnetic sleep, opera- 
tions have been performed without creating pain ? The 
lady on whom Mons. Chopelain operated, talked coolly 
and unconsciously during its performance. And Jules 
Cloquet, in Paris, amputated the breast of a lady who 
had been put into an ecstacy or state of apathetic trance 
by a mesmerizer. 

Ev. It is, I believe, quite true that she was perfectly 
unconscious of the operation. But even this is not 
safe. Pain is given us as a warning against extreme 
injury; that by our complaint or suffering, the sur- 
geon^s mind may be on its guard. For the body is so 
far in disorder when it is chilled by this apathetic speU, 
that it may sink under fatal injuries, although they may 
be endured by the mind unconscious of its peril or its 
state. As a very curious antitype to these cases, it is 
stated in a medical gazette, that a young lady fell down 
in an hysterical fit and was insensible for two days. As 
a puffy swelling arose, she was trephined, but there 



MESMERISM. 413 

was no disease of the brain. In two days after this, she 
awoke and expressed all the steps of the operation, of 
which she had been painlessly sensible. 

AsTR. And in this state of ecstasis, is there not 
strange havoc played with the senses, by their seeming 
displacement or transference ? 

The philosophers will tell us that the ganglia in 
the abdomen become as it were little brains, and the 
plexusses and the nerves of the skin become, like those 
of the senses, capable of imparting the idea of visible 
objects to those ganglia and of rendering a slight whis- 
per distinctly audible. This is all very fine, and very 
material; but this straining at explanation is itself a 
proof of mystery. Van Ghest records the case of Made- 
moiselle B , a young lady who was magnetized : she 

assured him that while she was intently looked upon, 
she felt her eyes and brain leave her head, and become 
fixed in her stomach, in which situation she saw acutely ; 
but if she was in the slightest degree disturbed, the 
eyes and their sense seemed to return to her head. 

The stories recorded in the book of the Rev. Chauncey 
Townsend are not less curious than this„ 

Ev. Although I take the metaphysics of a divine with 
reservation, his facts may not be doubted. For there 
are other powerful impressions that will produce pheno- 
mena as curious. The arm of a young man in the 
" Ospidale della Vitta,^^ at Bologna, in 1832, was grasped 
by a convulsive patient. Violent spasms succeeded, 
and he lost the senses of taste, smell, and sensibility of 
the skin, but he could hear if the voice was applied on 
the stomach ; and could, at that spot, discriminate be- 
tween different substances. 

Another patient in the same hospital was subject 
every third day to violent convulsions, during the con- 
tinuance of which, he lost entirely the use of all his 
senses, and could neither hear, see, nor smell. His 



414 MESMERISM. 

hands also became so firmly clenched^ that it would be 
impossible to open them without breaking the fingers. 
Nevertheless^ Dr. Ciri_, the physician under whose 
charge he was placed, discovered that the epigastric re- 
gion, at about two fingers breadth above the navel^ 
received all the impressions of the senses^ so as to 
replace them completely. If the patient was spoken to 
whilst the finger was placed on this spot, he gave an- 
swers_5 and even, when desired, opened his hands of his 
own accord. If any substance or matter was placed 
there, he could describe its form and quality, its colour 
and smell. As long as the finger was kept on the 
stomach, the convulsion gradually diminished until it 
entirely disappeared ; but if the finger were placed on 
the heart, the convulsion returned with increased vio- 
lence, and continued as long as the finger was kept in 
that position. If a flute was played while the finger 
was kept on the stomach, the patient heard the music ; 
but if the finger was taken away, and placed on the 
heart, and then taken back again to its former position, 
the man asked why they played by intervals ; yet the 
flute had never ceased. These experiments were all 
made in the presence of the professors and students of 
the hospital. 

I will not counsel you, Astrophel, as to the extent of 
your belief in these strange tales, but extreme exaggera- 
tion often lessens the interest which scientific minds 
would take in these curiosities. 

These pictures are correct in their outline, but the 
artists have not spared their colours. They will remind 
us, who are learned in legends, of that illusive mono- 
mania among the monks of Mount Athos, who believed 
that they could at pleasure attain a celestial vision by 
communing devoutly with the Deity, while their atten- 
tion or their sight were directed to the umbilicus ! And 
they were therefore called '^ Omphalopsychians.^^ We 



i 



MESMERISM. 415 

discover also very close analogies to this mental con- 
centration, in the acuteness with which one sense is 
endowed on the failure of another. The delicacy of 
touch in the blind is often extreme; I knew a blind 
lady who played an excellent rubber, passing her finger 
lightly over the card spots ; and more curious still are 
the cases of Miss M'^Avoy, of Stanley the organist, and 
of Professor Saunderson. De Luc tells us of a lady, 
who read distinctly by passing her fingers over the 
page, even of a strange book. In Laura Bridgman, an 
American girl, an inmate of the Institution of Boston 
since 1837, the wliote faculty of perception was concen- 
trated in the one sense of touch. At the age of two, 
sight, and hearing, and smelling, and almost taste, de- 
serted her. To this interesting creature, through the 
acuteness of her sense of touch in tracing letters, has been 
imparted so much knowledge, that the moral sentiments 
and the congenial afiections of the heart are now beauti- 
fully displayed in her character. If by the dumb al- 
phabet, or finger-talking, conversation is commenced 
with her, she follows the fingers with her arm with 
extreme rapidity, so that scarce a letter escapes her. 
Such are the wonders of this child^s intelligence, that 
her mind has been cited as illustrative of innate senti- 
ment \ but the very facility is enough to explain her 
actions. 

Le Cat writes of a blind sculptor at Voltera, who 
modelled features most faithfully by the touch. 

A French gentleman lost the integrity of every sense, 
but sensation remained in half of his face, on which he 
received the correspondence of his friends by their 
tracing on it letters or forms. 

In Mr. Eschke^s establishment at Berlin, conversation 
was carried on by tracing letters on the clothes of the 
back. 

A Bolognese, on witnessing a woman in acute hysteria, 



416 MESMERISM. 

became occasionally convulsed^ and impenetrably deaf; 
if^ however^ the slightest whisper was breathed to the 
pit of the stomach, he heard distinctly. 

From AndraPs Lectures^ to please you, Astrophel, I 
will select this fragment : 

" I saw yesterday a young lady who has been fre- 
quently magnetized, and who, on my visit, presented 
some very remarkable circumstances. After a fit of in- 
digestion she fell into the ecstatic state, in which she 
continued when I saw her. Her skin was perfectly in- 
sensible, and her eyes were open like animals^ in whom 
the fifth pair of nerves has been divided. She could 
perceive light, knew the difference between day and 
night for instance, but she could see and distinguish 
nothing else. She could not speak, but by signs ex- 
pressed that her intellect was unusually active. But 
the most remarkable of the phenomena she presented 
was a singular exaltation of the sense of hearing. So 
extraordinarily delicate had this become, that she dis- 
tinctly perceived sounds inaudible to myself and several 
other persons. ^^ 

Cams, unmindful of the existence of a state of ab- 
stract reverie resembling sleep, records the case of a 
young ecclesiastic, who composed sermons in a state of 
slumber, correcting and adding to them with peculiar 
care. And this is the deduction: that the sense of 
vision seemed to be transferred to the fingers , as the eyes 
were perfectly blinded to the writing paper. His eyes, 
when he sat for his portrait, should have been painted 
at the tips of his fingers. 

James Mitchell, congenitally deaf and blind, discri- 
minated his friends from strangers, and even formed a 
fair estimate of character, by the smell of the parties. 
And there was a deaf woman (writes Le Cat) who could 
read, and even tell the difference of languages, from the 
silent motion of the lip. 



MESMERISM. 417 

From these very curious illustrations we may confess 
that these lines in Hudibras are no fiction : 



" Communities of senses 

To chop and change intelligences, 

As Rosicrucian virtuosis 

Can see with ears and hear with noses." 



For so strange are the synonymes of the senses, that 
the blind will express their notion of colour by sound; 
the tint of scarlet is like the sound of a trumpet. From 
this hint, probably, St. Amand, in the ^^ Pilgrims of the 
Rhine,'^ speaks of a visible music, 

Ida. Do we not perceive, also, something of this 
acuteness in the sense of touch under certain other con- 
ditions ? In the story of Caspar Hauser, whether it be 
romance or reality, we read the following illustration of 
the effect of mmer«Z traction : 

'^ Once, when the physician. Dr. Osterhausen, and 
the royal crown fiscal, Brunner, from Munich, hap- 
pened to be present, Daumer led Caspar, in order to 
try him, to a table covered with an oil cloth, upon which 
lay a sheet of paper, and desired him to say whether 
any metal was under it. He moved his finger over it, 
and then said, ^ There it draws.' ^ But this time,' replied 
Daumer, ^ you are nevertheless mistaken, for,' with- 
drawing the paper, ' nothing lies under it.' Caspar 
seemed at first to be somewhat embarrassed, but he put 
his finger again to the place where he thought he had 
felt the drawing, and assured them repeatedly that he 
there felt a drawing. The oil cloth was then removed, 
a stricter search was made, and a needle was actually 
found there." 

Caspar Hauser might have felt this, or a cunning 
youth might have palmed on us his idea for a truth. 
Yet I confess Parkinson also relates the case of a 

E e 



418 CLAIRVOYANCE. 

woman who fainted on the touch of a stethoscope, ex- 
claiming that it was " drawing her too strongly." 

Cast. And of clairvoyance. Have you no incidents, 
Astrophel ? 

AsTR. Many. Listen to the following fragments. 
One from AndraFs Lectures : 

'' M. Feruss was present at the experiment. A watch 
was held behind the individuaPs head. ^ I see/ said he, 
^ something that shines.^ ' What is it ?^ ^ A watch.' He 
was asked the hour, and replied exactly. Two different 
watches were tried. He was equally precise. The 
watches were taken out of the room, and the hands 
altered. He still told the hours and minutes expressed 
on the dials." 

Another from an English newspaper, in 1833 : 

^^ Mr. Barnaby ('twas at Bow-street) took his watch 
from his pocket, and said, ^What have I got in my 
hand ?' ^ A watch,' was the reply. — ^ What is it made 
of?' ' Gold.'— ^ What chain is attached to it ?' ' None 
at all,' said the boy : ^ there is a riband to it.' — ^ Can 
you tell at what hour the hand stands?' ^Yes, at 
twelve.' Mr. B. showed his watch, and the hands were 
at twelve precisely. Mr. B. then produced his purse 
from his pocket, and asked the boy the colour of it, and 
what it contained, and his answers were, without having 
the least opportunity of turning round towards the 
bench, that one end of the purse was brown, and 
the other yellow, and that the brown end contained 
sovereigns, and the yellow end silver. Mr. B. admitted 
the correctness of the description, and, taking some 
silver from his pocket, asked the boy to describe the 
different pieces. ^ What is this ?' ^ Sixpence,' said the 
boy, ' and of the date 1819.'—^ What is the next ?' ' A 
shilling, and dated 1816,' was the reply. And when 
the clerk brought forth another coin, and asked simi- 
lar questions, the boy said, ^That is a sixpence of the 



MAGNETIC ECSTACY. 419 

date of 1817;' and all these guesses proved to be cor- 
rect/' 

Townsend and Wood, at Antwerp and Paris, pro- 
duced this second sight in several instances. E. A., 
with eyes bandaged, read two hundred pages of print, 
and even written music. 

Ev. A little more sifting of these cases, Astrophel, 
and they would resemble that of the cataleptic female 
of Amiens, related by Petelin; who also professed to 
tell the spots of a card, unseen by her. But it was dis- 
covered that the physician glided it beneath the bed- 
clothes. Or that told by Bertrand, of another ecstatic 
female : — " While lying entranced in a chamber illumi- 
nated by a candle, her ring was removed from her finger 
by Monsieur Bertrand, and given to a person standing 
near him. She was asked who had her ring, — ^Mr. 
Eyre has it in his trowsers pocket.' Mr. Bertrand ex- 
claimed that she was wrong, for it was not to Mr. Eyre 
the ring was given. The lady persisted in her state- 
ment, and, on immediate inquiry, it was found that the 
person who first was given the ring had secretly con- 
veyed it to Mr. Eyre." 

The pages of history are not deficient in these pre- 
tensions to miracle. From Ulrick Zwingle we learn 
that Thomas Aquinas, the evangelical doctor, professed, 
by intense thought, to throw himself into ecstacy ; in 
which, strange visions and mysteries of another exist- 
ence passed before him. 

Matthew Paris writes of a monk of Evesham, and of 
a certain Sir Owen, that, in one of these ecstacies, was 
favoured with an introduction into Saint Patrick's pur- 
gatoiy. So the mad visionary, Jacob Boehm, fell into 
many strange trances, and at last were revealed to him, 
— ^^ The origin of nature ; the formation of all things ; 
and even divine principles and intelligent natures ! " 

But the case of Santa Theresa, if we can but believe 
E e2 



420 MAGNETIC ECSTACY. 

the testimony of so accomplished an hypocrite^ presents 
phenomena far more remarkable than all these. " Her 
frame was naturally deKcate^ her imagination lively, and 
her mind, incapable of being fixed by trivial objects, 
turned with avidity to those which rehgion offered, the 
moment they were presented to her view. But, unfor- 
tunately, meeting with the writings of Saint Jerome, 
she became enamoured of the monastic life, and, quit- 
ting the line for which nature designed her, she re- 
nounced the most endearing ties, and bound herself by 
the irrevocable vow. Deep melancholy then seized on 
her, and increased to such a degree, that for many days 
she lay both motionless and senseless, like one who is 
in a trance. Her tender frame, thus shaken, prepared 
her for ecstacies and visions, such as it might appear 
invidious to repeat, were they not related by herself and 
by her greatest admirers. She tells us that, in the 
fervour of her devotion, she not only became insensible 
to every thing around her, but that her body was often 
lifted up from the earth, although she endeavoured to 
resist the motion. And Bishop Yessen relates in parti- 
cular, that, when she was going to receive the Eucharist 
at Avila, she was raised in a rapture higher than the 
grate, through which, as is usual in nunneries, it was 
presented to her. She often heard the voice of God, 
when she was recovered from a trance ; but sometimes 
the devil, by imitation, endeavoured to deceive her, yet 
she was always able to detect the fraud.^^ 

So that Theresa's life was an elysium on earth, and 
she might well have cried out in her ecstacy, — 



SIC sine vita, 



Vivere quam suave est, sic sine morte mori." 

Yet the modern proselytes to Mesmerism would 
scarcely believe this a fiction, but an illustration of that 
lucid vision which may, it is believed, be so highly ex- 



MAGNETIC ECSTACY. 421 

cited^ as to associate the being with universal nature : a 
creed grounded on the expansion or illimitable nature 
of thought or mind, by which it seems to leave the 
body, carrying with it its consciousness. 

So the disciples of Mesmer asserted, that, when they 
thought or spoke warmly of absent persons, they would 
both appear in their eidolon ; and also that they were, 
at that exact time, speaking or thinking of them. This 
was Shelley's conviction, that minds sympathetically im- 
parted ideas and thoughts, — particles, indeed, of the 
^^mens divinior/' So that they might well see in the 
dark. 

Brown would be in a flood of joy to hear the affirma- 
tions of these ecstatics, whose spirits, as they believe and 
avow, are for the time released from the chains of mor- 
tality. " Why,'' exclaimed one of these half-spiritual- 
ized creatures, — '' Why do you bring me again to life ? 
Would you depart from me, my body would grow cold, 
my soul would not return to it, and I should be 
happy." 

AsTR. You are fond of caricature, Evelyn. I speak 
of sober truths only. I am told that the powers of 
acquirement may be so increased by magnetism, as to 
resemble new faculties. A lady, during a sort of ecstacy, 
sung most scientifically church music ; although, when 
awake, she entirely failed, and had forgotten all. And 
others will speak languages and sentiments, of which 
they are perfectly unconscious when awake. 

There was a girl in the vicinity of Bedford Row, of 
whose case there are related similar wonders of this 
magnetically-imparted accomplishment ; and her beauty 
was so enchanting, as to transcend the brightest visions 
of Michael Angelo or Correggio. 

Ev. Like that of the inspired somnambule, of whom 
Wolfart thus writes in his ^^ Annals :" ^^ An evil spirit 
ushered in her somnambulic sleep, and then a good 



422 MAGNETIC INTUITION. 

spirit spread its wings around her ; and when they had 
conversed^ he flew with her to the Eternal City^ through 
the sun and the moon ; and while there^ tranced scenes 
were around her^ and her spirit was enjoying her beati- 
tude : her face was like the face of a seraph^ and no 
mortal painter might essay to trace its beauty." So say 
those who saw this mystery. 

AsTR. Yet^ as to the prophetic power imparted by 
magnetism^' — cases are recorded by our enthusiastic 
proselytes, which throw the spells of the conjuror into 
an echpse — 

Ev. And therefore forbid belief. — 

AsTR. — Even those displayed before our learned 
bodies. Madame Celini Sauvage, you remember, in the 
presence of the committee, in Paris, was placed in som- 
nambulism. Even while insensible to stimuli she formed, 
it is recorded, a correct judgment of the diseases of per- 
sons around her, especially in the person of M. Marc, 
one of the committee ; and in that of a young lady, on 
whom M. Dupuytren had operated for dropsy, and had 
tried the effects of the milk of a goat which had been 
anointed with mercury. Madame, unconscious of this, 
prescribed the very same remedy. You remember the 
report, Evelyn. 

Ev. I remember, but beheve it not. 

Cast. And is it thus with all our legends ? have you 
no more faith in your own order ? There is the learned 
physician, Justin Kemer. You have not forgotten, As- 
trophel, his beautiful story of that most accomphshed 
somnambule, the Prophetess of Prevorst, who seemed, 
as she said, to draw from the air a Hving principle, and 
whose very vitality^ it was believed, was preserved by the 
magnetic influence. The body of this ethereal creature 
enfolded her spirit like a veil of film, — she was a very 
flower of light living on sun-beams. Her senses were 
lighted up by the minutest atom. A web of gossamer 



FALLACY OF MESMERISM. 423 

stung her waxen skin like a nettle. At the pale green 
Ught of a glow-worm^ she fell into ecstatic sleep ; and 
then, (as to my own TassoJ came to her spectral visit- 
ants, with whom she conversed, and whose colourless 
forms were visible even to her earthly companions. 
This fair creature had, as the story goes, been some 
time dead, when her mother made passes over her cold 
face and hps ; and lo ! her eyes opened, and a tremor 
was on her lip. Were I Astrophel, methinks I would 
make a pilgrimage to Lowenstein, where her body lies. 
And now, Evelyn, if you will, reprove me for my wild- 
ness, but confess there must be a sort of truth in 
legends so circumstantial as these. 

Ev. A fair question, dearest Castaly. Yes, it is the 
crude or false interpretation of that sort of truth, a tran- 
sient ghmpse it may be, of some embryo principle, that 
leads to popular error. A baseless theoiy is raised on 
an isolated fact ; and infantile science, bursting from its 
leading-strings ere it can crawl, topples headlong down 
the precipice, and sphts on the rock of hypothetical 
presumption. 

And then the confusion into which the mind is thrown 
by the definitions and conclusions of magnetizers, would 
make a very Babel of the fair field of philosophy. The 
least perplexing, perhaps, is that of the French savans 
who referred magnetism to the efforts of a fluid matter 
consisting of fire, air, and spirit, to preserve its equi- 
librium in certain bodies which were, as to their capa- 
city for this fluid, in a state of plus and minus. There 
is nothing very unphilosophical in this ; for the essence 
of magnetism is somewhat analogous to eccentric de- 
rangement of mind, a disturbance of that order or sym- 
metry among the faculties and actions, by which one is 
highly excited and another is comparatively passive. 
In a word. Mesmerism is true in part : it 7nay induce 
catalepsy, somnambulism, exalted sensation, apathetic 



424 ANALYSIS OF ANIMAL MAGNETISM. 

insensibility^ suspended circulation_, even death. Clair- 
voyance and prophecy alone are the impositions as 
regards its effects, as the '^ blue flame^^ at the finger tips 
is of its nature. 

One folly more. Mesmer himself vaunted to Dr. Von 
Ellikon, '^ twenty years ago I magnetized the sun ;'^ &c. 
so that the miracle of Joshua was but a stroke of mag- 
netism. Indeed, Richter, rector of the School of Dessau, 
affirms that all the miracles of the Testament were but 
the sequences of magnetic passes. And Kieser refers 
all to a " telluric spirit/^ a sort of magic, of which the 
sun and moon are the grand reservoirs ; nay, this in- 
fluence is the real cause of sleep and waking. 

Ida. So that we are mesmerized by the moon at 
night-fall, and unmesmerized by the sun at the opening 
of the dawn. 

Ev. Then there were some aphorisms of Wolfart 
about fiddling to the viscera with his magnetic medicine, 
and working them up, as it were, to a jig or a bolero. 
These are the visions of a madman. But surely the 
illusion regarding this mysterious fluid is confessed in 
Dupotet's own notion of Ms own wondrous faculty, 
when he asserts his beHef that animal magnetism is 
analogous to the royal touch, and the mysteries of 
Apollo, and ^sculapius, and I sis, the miracles of Ves- 
pasian, and the SibylUne prophecies. 

AsTR. You sneer at this as you did at the blue flame ; 
but Dupotet assures us that while he is magnetizing his 
patients, he feels a sensation at the points of his fingers 
resembling the aura from diffused electricity. Now is 
it not fair to ask if electro-magnetism may not reside in 
the animal as well as in the mineral, in man as well as 
in the torpedo and gymnotus. And why may there not 
be a condition of intercommunication or en rapport, a 
magnetic aura creeping through the neiTes of each 
body? 



ANALYSIS OF ANIMAL MAGNETISM. 425 

We should not, therefore, make any hasty decision 
against the presence of an aura streaming from the 
fingers and directed by the will. Monsieur Deleuze 
said, in Paris, ^^ I do not know if this be material or 
spiritual, nor to what distance it is impelled ; but it is 
impelled and directed by my will, for if I cease to will, 
the influence instantly ceases.^^ 

I remember Priestly opined that phlogiston in our 
bodies produced electricity, which was destined for our 
own purposes merely. But as the silurus and the tor- 
pedo possess the power of imparting theirs, although at 
the expense of their animal power, I presume to think 
that concentrated mind may impart our own nervous 
influence to others. 

Ev. I admire the acuteness of your question. Astro - 
phel ; but you are now come down from your clouds ; 
you are descending unawares to physiology. There are, 
doubtless, many peculiar states of the nervous system 
at present inexplicable. I grant it is possible that the 
influence of the nervous energy may become so eccentric 
as to illustrate the phenomena of magnetism, if, as some 
believe, this influence depends on a subtle fluid ana- 
logous to hght, heat, and electricity ; the nerve convey- 
ing this fluid as the wire conducts the electric. 

Thus an influence, which is apparently physical, may 
be, in reality, mental, for there is usually consciousness 
of the contact. M. Bertrand believed that the mind 
alone of the patient was acted on, and this is strength- 
ened by the experiments of the Abbe Faria, who pro- 
duced many of these phenomena by merely exclaiming 
to his sensitive visitors, '^ Dormez.'' 

AsTR. Well, you are drawing the influences of mind 
and body very closely together, Evelyn. If animal 
magnetism be not the universal influence of sensitive 
beings, what is personal sympathy ? 

Ev. It is not that mysterious freemasonry of the 



426 ANALYSIS OF ANIMAL MAGNETISM. 

senses which may impart a superhuman knowledge, or 
confer a power of personal recognition. Yet we are 
requu*ed to believe such stories. 

AsTR. And are there not many well attested ? There 
was a Monsieur de la Tour Landrie, a nobleman of 
France, who so powerfully influenced a young shoe- 
maker by whom he was measured, that the youth fell 
into a senseless syncope, and profuse haemorrhage suc- 
ceeded it. This influence was repeated, and excited so 
deep an interest in the mind of the noble, that he in- 
stituted an inquiry regarding his birth and fortunes. 
And the result was, that Monsieur de la Tour discovered 
in the humble mechanic the son of his sister, the Baronne 
de Vesines. 

The thrill of feeHng with which the lover touches the 
hp of his mistress, the intense delight with which the 
mother presses her infant to her bosom, are illustrations 
of that power to which I allude. It is the magnetic 
touch of beauty which sends the fires of passion not 
only through the bounding heart of youth, but even 
through the icy veins of the stoic. " He that would 
preserve the liberty of his souV^ said Socrates, " must 
abstain from kissing handsome people.^^ " What, then,^^ 
said Charmides, "must I be afraid of coming near a 
handsome woman ? Nevertheless, I remember very 
well, and I beheve you do so too, Socrates, that being 
one day in company with Critobulus^s beautiful sister, 
who resembles him so much, as we were searching 
together for a passage in some author, you held your 
head close to that beautiful virgin, and I thought you 
seemed to take pleasure in touching her naked shoulder 
with yours .^^ " Good God V^ replied Socrates, '' I will 
tell you truly how I was punished for it for five days 
after. I thought I felt in my shoulder a certain tickling 
pain as if I had been bit by gnats, or pricked with 
nettles; and I must confess, too, that during all that 



ANALYSIS OF ANIMAL MAGNETISM. 427 

time I felt a certain hitherto unknown pain at my 
heart/' 

Ev. So that ^^the crime/' Hke that of Sir Peter 
Teazle, '' carried its punishment along with it/' But 
you must see that the mind of Socrates first appreciated 
beauty, ere this influence was imparted to him. Imagina- 
tion is not certainly idle here, yet I grant, that if the 
charm of substantial beauty or endearment be wanting, 
poesy will ever be but a cold and joyless sentiment. 

AsTR. Then there is another mysterious sympathy, 
the fascination of the evil eye, or fascino. There were, 
both in Africa and in lUyria, writes Aulius Gellius, cer- 
tain famihes believed to possess the power of destroying 
trees, flowers, and children, and this by merely praising 
them ; and Plutarch and Pindar refer to the credence 
of the Greeks on this point, who were wont to invoke 
the Fate Nemesis against this fascination of an evil 
eye. 

I think, too, traces of this credence may be found in 
Ovid, and Horace, and Pliny. 

Ev. Yes, and in modern Italy the professors of the 
art are yet termed jettatori, or eye-throwers. But Val- 
letta, an Italian author, conscious of the truth, boldly 
disclaims for his countrymen the notion of demoniac 
influence, referring it to physical impression, somewhat 
resembling the fascination of the eye of the rattlesnake, 
that drops, as we are told, the bird from the branch into 
its mouth. In that exquisite sympathy between mind 
and body (the sequence of an influence on sensibility, 
or on the senses) consists the secret of all this. 

You remember the efiects of intense impression on 
the mind in the excitement of catalepsy, and indeed in 
causing instantaneous death: this is intense influence 
on the sensibility. The effects of deep impression on 
the sight or touch, by the passes of magnetism, are 
magnetic ecstacies : this is intense influence on the 



428 INFLUENCE OF FAITH. 

senses. So that all your mysteries are the result of this 
influence passing through the brain to the body ; and 
the vaunted miracles of Mesmer, and Bertrand, and 
Dupotet^ are, as I have said, impositions, chiefly as 
regards the nature of their influence. And, like these, 
the doctrines of Fludd the Seeker, of the Abbe Nollet, 
of Lavater, of Nicetas the Jesuit, and the quaint ideas 
of many other visionaries, which you may read in their 
writings, are really explicable by the laws of physiology. 

When the magnetiser asserts that a patient should 
possess a disposition to be acted on, he unwarily divulges 
his own secret; for this is nothing more than blind 
faith in a promise. And this credulity is most charac- 
teristic of that disordered condition of a nerve, acute 
sensibiHty, in which the slightest causes may effect a 
seeming wonder. Nay, even disease and death were 
so induced during the manipulations of Hensler and 
Emmehn. 

This also is the secret of that influence imparted by 
the touch of a seventh son ; or of the hand of a criminal 
hanging on the gallows ; or the revolting precept of 
Pliny, that an epileptic should drink the blood of a 
dying gladiator, as it gushes from his wound ; or the 
stroking of Valentine Greatrex ; the sympathetic powder 
of Sir Kenelm Digby ; the tractors of Perkins ; of chi- 
romancy, rhabdomancy, and of other curiosities recorded 
in tracts and journals. 

In my professional life, I have seen the same in- 
fluence, though infinitely less in degree, imparted by 
an implicit confidence in the blessings of our science. 
Even Bertrand honestly confesses its power. 

A lady was thrown into deep sleep by the touch of a 
magnet, sent by him in an handkerchief from the dis- 
tance of three hundred miles. But the same effect was 
produced by the contact of unmagnetized cambric ; and 
Bertrand allows, that where an ignorance of his inten- 



INFLUENCE OF FAITH. 429 

tion existed, even the magnetized talisman was powerless 
oyer his patient. 

I could tell you tales of bits of wood effecting all the 
wonders of the metallic tractors of Perkins ; and cubes 
of lead, and those of nickel, fraught, as a learned doctor 
had declared, with magnetic virtues ; but I spare you. 

From this superstitious faith spring also the miracles 
of that pious saint, who had assumed the staff of Saint 
Francis Xavier, the Prince Hohenlohe. One of these 
was the cure of Miss O'Connor, attested by Dr. Bad- 
deley, of Chelmsford, who had tried in vain to relieve 
the lady of acute neuralgia. She was directed to pro- 
strate herself at the altar in Chelmsford at the moment 
when the sainted prince would kneel at his shrine in 
the cathedral of Bamberg. At the appointed time, 
during the solemn celebration of high mass, as she ex- 
claimed, " Thy will be done, O Lord,'' the agonizing 
limb was painless. 

I do not doubt the possibility of such an incident. 
And here is the unfolding of another secret of these 
German magnetizers, who were believed to shoot at 
their patients with the unerring aim of a rifle, even 
though many miles might intervene. Nadler, as we 
are told in the '^ Asclepeion," was so good a shot, that 
he brought a woman to the ground at the moment he 
fixed his magnetic aura at her, aiming between the eyes 
and the bosom, even at the distance of eighteen miles. 

I am aware that this, my philosophy, would not pass 
current at the Vatican, for "the congregation of the 
holy office, having once applied to the pope, to know if 
animal magnetism were lawful, and if penitents might 
be permitted to be operated on; his holiness replied, 
that the application of principles and means purely 
physical to things and effects which are supernatural, 
for the purpose of explaining them physically, is nothing 
but an unlawful and heretical deception." 



430 INFLUENCE OF FAITH. 

But I may tell you that his holiness himself was once 
a great monopolist of saints' cures, if we may believe a 
book, printed by Roberts, in London, in 1605, entitled, 
" A Declaration of egregious Popish Impostures, to 
withdraw the hearts of religious men, under pretence 
of casting out devils ; practised by Father Edmunds, 
alias Weston, a Jesuite, and divers Romish priests his 
wicked associates/' 

And, moreover, the interference of priests has often 
led to the interdiction of protestants, in their scientific 
ministering to disease the most severe, as typhus fever, 
or surgical operations, because they were heretics ; while 
the profane Paracelsus says, " It matters not, by God 
or devil, so he he cured ;" even without an indulgence, 
I presume, from Delia Genga, or the leave of the sacred 
college. 

Believe me, the influence of faith will illustrate all 
this mystery, and reduce even these impostures to a 
simple truth. Without it, only the grossest supersti- 
tion would believe that sympathy would thus " take the 
wings of the morning," and impart to a mind that was 
thinking at our antipodes a consciousness of our own 
sentiments; for this would be a revival of that blind 
creduhty, which in the darker ages was reposed in the 
superhuman agency of magic and of witchcraft. 



SIBYLLINE INFLUENCE. 



'* She was a charmer, and cou'd almost read 
The thoughts of people." Othelio. 



Ida. As you unfold the wonders of the mind^ Evelyn, 
the secrets of many splendid mysteries shine forth in 
the light of your truth ; and the wisdom of ^^ charmed 
rings/' "blessed brambles/' and amulets and talis- 
mans, fades before the precepts of a purer faith. Yet 
is there no witchcraft in your philosophy ? You have, 
methinks, absolved Astrophel from spells and dark 
hours, for, in the softened lustre of his eye I see a light 
more holy than its wonted flash of divination. 

Cast. You have more faith in his conversion than 
I have, Ida ; for, lo ye now ! On a mossy stone in Tin- 
tern lay this sable velvet pouch, which, from its mystic 
'broidery, might be the lost treasure of a Rosicrucian 
cabalist. 

" There's magic in the web of it ; 
A sibyl that had number'd in the world 
The sun to make two hundred compasses, 
In her prophetic fury sew'd the work." 

And here is a scroll of vellum folded within it. Listen, 



432 SIBYLLINE INFLUENCE. 

and you shall hear the pencillings of some unhappy 
student, benighted in the mazes of the Cabala. 

" The eye of modern philosophy may wink at the 
wisdom of occult sciences, and sorcerers and magicians, 
necromancers and Rosicrucians, cabahsts and conjurers, 
astrologers and soothsayers. Philomaths, Drows, and 
Oreades, wizards and witches, and warlocks, and sibyls 
and gipsies, may be, in its estimation, a mere legion of 
cyphers. Yet faith hath been long and firmly lavished 
on the art of divination by the learned and mighty men 
of all ages. The Chaldean, who read the stars, was the 
coryphaeus and the type of superhuman knowledge; 
the magi of Persia and Egypt, and other orient lands, 
followed in his wake. The venerable Hermes Trisme- 
gistus was surrounded by his proselytes in the year of 
the world 2076; and Apollonius and Zoroaster, and 
Pythagoras, and, in later ages, John of Leyden, Roger 
Bacon, and other learned mystagogues, have imbibed 
a more than mortal wisdom from the aspect of those 
starry lights which gem the vaulted firmament ; while 
the luminous schools of Padua, and Seville, and Sala- 
manca, were rich in the records of occult and mystic 
learning. Emperors and kings, and ministers, who 
ruled the destiny of mighty nations, have beheved. 
Wallenstein was all confiding ; Richelieu and Mazarin 
(as Morin writes) retained soothsayers as a part of their 
household; Napoleon studied with implicit faith his 
book of fate ; and Canute, obedient to his confidence in 
the virtue of relics, directed his Roman agent to buy 
St. Augustine's arms for one hundred silver talents, 
and one of gold. 

" Nay, what saith divinity itself? Glanvil, the chap- 
lain of King Charles II., affirms in his ^ Saducismus 
Triumphatus,' that ^ the disbeliever in a witch must 
believe the devil gratis f and Wesley said, that ^ giving 
up witchcraft was, in fact, giving up the Bible.' Now, 



SIBYLLINE INFLUENCE. 433 

as the Chaldean sophs were divided into three classes — 
1. the ^Ascaphim/ or charmer; 2. the ' Mecascaphim/ 
or magician ; 3. the ' Chasdim/ or astrologer ; so the 
legion of modern witches was composed of a mystic 
tryad, distinguished by colours that were a symbol of 
their influence on our mortal frame. The black witch 
could hurt^ but not help ; the white could help, but not 
hurt ; the grey could both help and hurt.^^ 

Ida. My own Castaly, have pity on us. Evelyn may 
unrol the coils of this unholy manuscript if he will. 

I do believe this lettered clerk has, in some unhappy 
hour, wandered by the ruins of the Seven Churches in 
the valley of Glendalough ; and there, creeping up to 
St. Keven's bed, that hangs over the gloomy waters of 
its lake, has won the fatal gift of Catholic magic. Or 
perchance he has sworn allegiance with Faust and Friar 
Bacon. 

AsTR. If an Oxford student must kneel at the shrine 
of a fair lady, he will whisper this confession. In ex- 
ploring the treasures of black-letter romance, he revelled 
among the occidt mysteries, slighting that pure analysis 
of nature which is the essence of all philosophy. The 
legends of Reginald Scott, De Foe, Glanvil, and 
Wanley, were the companions of his pillow ; and thus 
in poring over the legends of enchantment, he was him- 
self enchanted, and contemplated a wondrous history of 
witchcraft, where Sir Walter himself had failed. Let 
me have light penance, and I promise in the simple and 
beautiful hght of nature alone to read her wonders ; 
and if I dare, to study astrology in those planet eyes 
which look so mildly on their proselyte. 

Ida. Or rather, as the magi of old, you will burn 
your books of divination ; and, like Friar Bacon, who 
broke the rare glass which showed him things fifty 
miles off, you will study divinity, and become a pious 
anchorite. 

Ff 



434 SIBYLLINE INFLUENCE. 

Cast. I am happy that you abandon the dark and 
dooming spells of the magus and the witch, Astrophel, 
for witchcraft is the unholy opposition of a demon to 
the Deity. Yet in your fate I read my own. But cen- 
sure not the poetry of that innocent romance that lights 
up the legends of the berry-brown sibyl, whether she 
be a tirauna prowling in the streets of Madrid, or a 
gipsy perched upon the heath-brow of Norwood; for 
theirs are happy prophecies. Yet if, like Astrophel, I 
am to be the slave of philosophy, let me at least make 
^^ a dying and a swan-like end.^^ 

It was among the heath-valleys, where nature lay in 
wild repose around the place of my birth, that I first 
met the glance of a gipsy's eye. On the northern side 
of that beautiful sandhill in Surrey, that rears its purple 
and turret-crowned crest between the chalk hills and 
the weald, there is a green and bosky glen, the '^ Valley 
Lonesome.^' Along the waste of Broadmoor, that 
spreads between the brow of Leith-Hill and the Roman 
camp of Anstie-bury, comes rippling down the crystal 
streamlet of the Till, which, blending with a torrent 
that leaps from a lofty sand-rock, steals away amid 
mosses and cardamines, and cuckoo-flowers ; now ghd- 
ing between its emerald banks, now swelling into a 
broader sheet, beneath the beech woods of Wotton, the 
ancient seat of the Evelyns. There the willows dip 
their silver blossoms, and the violet, almost hidden be.^ 
neath them, fills the air with sweetness. There th^ 
wild briar wreaths in light festoons its tiny roses, and the 
passion-flower, entwining its luxuriant tendrils around 
the aspen and the sycamore, hangs its beautiful blue 
stars in rich profusion. And there, among the boughs 
of lofty elms whose shadows in the early morning darken 
the casements of Tillingbourne, a colony of rooks hang 
their woody nests ; and the murmurs of the ringdove, 
nestling within the woods of Wotton and the Rookery, 



SIBYLLINE INFLUENCE. 435 

are heard in the golden noon and sunset of June, float- 
ing around this leafy paradise. 

It was on such an eve that my thoughts had faded 
into slumber ; and when my eyelids oped, there was a 
form of embrowned beauty before me so wild, yet so 
majestic, that Cleopatra, in the garb of an Egyptian 
slave-girl, might have stolen upon my sleep : so scant of 
clothing, so lovely of form and feature, she was like an 
almond-flower upon a leafless branch. Her expression 
was full of beautiful contrasts, for, while her eaglet eye 
went into my being, there was a languid smile on her 
ruddy lip, as she were about to syllable my own destiny ; 
and, indeed, she did unfold to me many things which 
have been most strangely worked out and verified in my 
life. I wept at some of these foretellings, and she said, 
^^ Tears were the pearls that gem the rose-leaves of life.'^ 
I smiled at others, and she said, " Smiles were the sun- 
light that warmed their swelling leaflets into beauty.'^ 

Throughout that summer night, when all were sleep- 
ing, save two romantic girls, she unfolded to me the 
secrets of her tribe, and a mine of mysteries learned 
from a Bohemian Maugrabee, She told me how, and 
why, the Druids, when the moon was six days old, cut 
the misseltoe with a golden knife ; how the vervain was 
gathered with the left hand, at the rising of the dog- 
star ; and the lunaria was valueless, if not picked by 
moonlight ; how the roatb^woody and the Banyan seed- 
ling^ and the four-leaved shamrocky bore a charm in 
their tender leaves against every ill of life. In nature, 
she said, there is no bane without its antidote, were the 
intellect of man ripe for its discovery. There are corals 
and green jaspers, carved into the forms of dragons and 
lizards, hung round an infant's neck, for the cure of an 
ague ; the crimson-spotted heliotropium, to staunch a 
flow of blood; a wrapper of scarlet-cloth, to mitigate 
the virulence of small-pox ; the blue-flannel, nine times 

Ff2 



436 SIBYLLINE INFLUENCE. 

dyed, to allay the pains of rheumatism ; and the magic 
word Abracadabra, to sooth the disorders of a nerve. 
And, above all, that wondrous weapon-salve of sympathy, 
which once healed on the instant the wound of Ulysses, 
and that which the dainty Ariel gave to Miranda, to 
charm Hippolito to life and health ; and that with which 
the lady of Branxholme salved the broken lance, w^hen 
William of Deloraine was healed. 

It will be long ere from my memory fade this vision 
of Charlotte Stanley. In pity, Evelyn, leave me this 
one romance of my young life,— the sheet and taper, 
nay, the ducking-stool for the witch, if you will, but 
deign to bestow one smile upon the gipsies. 

Remember the story of the Sibylline Tables. If 
Sextus Tarquin had not frowned on the Roman gipsy, 
she had not burned six of those precious volumes, 
which, from the massive cabinets of stone made to en- 
close the three that were preserved, prove that the 
Roman thought them priceless. One smile, Evelyn, 
for my sibyl. 

Ev. Not in memory of the Sibylline Tables, but for 
your own sake, dear Castaly. Although the innocence 
of your nut-brown sibyl is not so clear, and I am some- 
what jealous, too, of that white magic of hers, which 
hath won the belief of so many minds the reverse of 
illiterate, who, from the Chaldean even to Bacon and 
William Lilly, have spurned philosophy, and even divi- 
nity, and pinned their faith upon a gipsy's sleeve, and 
doted on the inspiration of an astrologer. 

Ida. Forgetful, it would seem, that the wicked king 
of Babylon found the devout Daniel, and Hananiah, 
and Michael, and Azariah, ten times better than all his 
magi and astrologers. 

These are the antiquaries who possess the last relic 
of the true cross ; or the last morsel of Shakspere's 
mulberrj^, of which last bit there may be about ten 



SIBYLLINE INFLUENCE. 437 

thousand ; such are they who would pen learned theses 
on the disputed place of sepulture of St. Denys, and 
determine the question, too, although one of his heads 
is in the cathedral of Bamberg, another in the church 
of Saint Vitus in the castle of Prague ; one of his hands 
in a chapel at Munich ; one of his bodies, minus one 
hand, in the keeping of the monks of Saint Emmeram 
at Regensberg ; while the monks of Saint Denys pos- 
sess another, his head being preserved in the third 
shrine of the treasury in their cathedral. These may 
be innocent follies, but superstition, alas ! will not 
always stop here ; fanaticism soon descends to self- 
infliction, or to cruelty, and in that moment it becomes 
a black stain on the heart of man. Yet, even for the 
tortures of the Inquisition (so exquisite, that we might 
believe- them the suggestions of a devil), the Jesuit, 
Macedo, has put forth this profane justification : that 
the bloody tribunal was first instituted by the Deity, 
in the condemnation of Cain and the bricklayers of 
Babel. 

Ev. Such was the trial of ordeal instituted for the 
test of innocence. Among the Anglo-Saxons, as all the 
chronicles of their history will show, this mode of trial 
prevailed ; as in the ordeals of the Cross, of boiling 
water and of the hot iron ; of cold ivater, or drowning ; 
and of the corsned, or consecrated cake. Equally 
savage was the trial for murder, so prevalent in Scot- 
land, especially the institution of their Bahr-recht, or 
" Right of the bier." Among the ^^ decisions" of Lord 
Fountainhall, you may read of legends almost incredi- 
ble. Philip, the son of Sir James Standfield, was exe- 
cuted because, in lifting the corpse of his murdered 
father from its bier, blood welled forth from his wound ; 
and the Laird of Auchindrane was tortured, because a 
corpse chanced to bleed on the approach of a little girl, 
who, I believe, was merely one of his domestics. 



438 SIBYLLINE INFLUENCE. 

But waving these profanations^ the reliques of a 
darker age^ let me have a word with Astrophel on part- 
ing. The seeming fulfilment of many a sibylline pro- 
phecy is perfectly clear as to its source. There may be 
coincidence, as in the dream ; or faith and inducement 
may impart an energy of action, which may itself work 
a wonder, or accomplish that end which is referred to a 
special power. 

At the siege of Breda, in 1625, when fatigue and 
abstinence had well nigh reduced the garrison to pro- 
stration and despair, the Prince of Orange practised this 
pious fraud on his soldiers : — He pretended to have 
obtained a charmed liquor, so concentrated, that (on 
the principles of homoeopathy) four drops would satu- 
rate a gallon of water with restorative virtues ; and with 
so much skill was this administered by the physicians, 
that a general restoration was speedily effected. 

You remember, Astrophel, the temptation of Diocle- 
tian. From Flavius Vopiscus we learn, that he was 
paying the Druidess of Brabant, with whom he lodged. 
"^ When I am emperor,^' he said, " I will be more gene- 
rous.'^ " Nay,'' said the Druidess, " you shall be em- 
peror, when you have killed the boar." He hunted and 
killed boars incessantly, but the purple was not offered 
to him. At length, the Emperor Numerianus was mur- 
dered by Arrius Aper, This was the eventful moment, 
and, transfixing the heart of Aper with his sword, he 
said, " I have slain the boar !" and the imperial crown 
was his. 

Is not this, too, the counterpart of that seeming pro- 
phecy of the Weird Sisters, which made Macbeth a 
murderer and a king ? 

There was an enchanted stone at Scone, in Scotland^ 
the palladium of Scottish liberty, for it was believed 
that the lord of that spot on which the stone lay, should 
bear sovereign sway. King Edward bore this talisman 

6 



SIBYLLINE INFLUENCE. 439 

away in triumph; and Scotland, depressed by its loss, 
became a vassal of the English crown. 

And this faith may invest the merest trifle with a 
spell. Sir Matthew Hale was presiding in his court on 
the trial of a witch. She had cured many diseases by 
a charm in her possession; and the evidence seemed 
conclusive of her guilt. But when the judge himself 
looked on this charm, behold ! it was a scrap of paper, 
inscribed with a Latin sentence, which, in default of 
money, he himself, while on the circuit, had given many 
years before, in a merry mood, to mine host, by way of 
reckoning. 

Among the many analogies to this story in ancient 
times, there was the potent poison-charm or antidote of 
Mithridates, King of Pontus. Its effect was supreme. 
And what its composition? twenty leaves of rue, one 
grain of salt, two nuts, and two dried figs ! 

Now you will remember that the wizard and the 
ministers of these charms, even among savages, were also 
their physicians, and, among pagans and papists, their 
priests. It is clear that the sensitiveness of mind and 
body under disease, when the first were consulted, and 
under the influence of superstitious fear, instilled by 
the priesthood, rendered them impressible to the most 
trifling causes. 

Even in minds of superior natural energy, from the 
instilment of superstitious ideas in infancy, a blind 
faith will often become paramount. Such a mind, and 
so influenced, was Byron^s; and on such a faith he 
once stole an agate bead from a lady, who had told 
him it was an antidote to love. It failed : had it not, 
Byron might have been a happier man; but the 
world would have been 'reft of poesy, the brightest, 
yet the darkest, that ever flashed on the heart and mind 
of man. 

Sir Humphrey Davy, you may recollect, ^'knew a 



440 SIBYLLINE INFLUENCE. 

man of very high dignity, who never went out shooting 
without a bittern's claw fastened to his button-hole 
by a riband, which he thought ensured him good 
luck/' 

To illustrate the innocence of your gipsy, Castaly, 
hear this story. 

"About forty years ago, a young lady, afterwards 

Mrs. W , rallied her companions aloud for listening 

to the predictions of an itinerant gipsy, when the latter 
malignantly threatened her to beware of her first con- 
finement. She was shortly afterwards married ; and, as 
the period of her peril approached, it became evident to 
her friends that the remembrance of the wizard maledic- 
tion began to fasten upon her spirits. She survived 
her time only a few days : and the medical attendants, 
who were men of eminence, stated it as their opinion, 
that mental prepossession alone could be admitted as 
the cause of her death; not one unfavourable circum- 
stance having occurred to explain it. 

" And some melancholy illusion of this nature induced 
fatality in the case of another lady, (Mrs. S.) who, ac- 
cording to the statement of the venerable Mr. Cline, 
reluctantly submitted to the removal of a small tumour 
in her breast. Unexpectedly, and without any apparent 
cause, she died, on the morning following the operation. 
It was then for the first time ascertained that she had 
prognosticated her death, and the impression that she 
should not survive had taken so strong a possession of 
her mind, that her minutest household arrangements 
were preconcerted, as appeared by the papers found in 
her cabinet.'' 

I believe that many modern instances of gradual and 
almost imperceptible decay, may be referred to the in- 
fluence both of melancholy prophecies and visions on 
the mind, although their agency may be unsuspected, 
and as obscure as that of the poisonous herbs of the 



SIBYLLINE INFLUENCE. 441 

Thessalian Erichtho, or the sorceress of Neapolis, or the 
aqua tofana of the Italians. 

And superstitious fear may induce a sudden death. 
Alfred^ a nobleman^ was one of the conspirators against 
the Saxon Athelstan. To justify himself from the accu- 
sation, he went to Rome, that he might make oath of 
his innocence before John, the pope. On the instant he 
took the oath he was convulsed, and, in three days, died. 

Then as to the language of the stars : — as the phreno- 
logist is much indebted to the principles of Lavater in 
forming his estimate of character, so I believe of the 
astrologer. The aspect of the face is not always dis- 
regarded in his prophecy, while he seems to observe 
only the aspect of the stars. And although there is often 
a very strange precision in his guesses, yet there was 
once a curious incident in my own presence, from which 
we may learn something of this secret. On a visit to a 
learned astrologer, (who might rest his fame on another 
art in which he is so eminent,) our fortunes, past and 
future, were told with extreme minuteness, and, I con- 
fess, with many coincidences of former times. One was 
reminded by the seer of a state of deprivation which he 
endured in the year 18 — , in the Mediterranean. The 
officer remembered in that year being becalmed in a 
voyage to Malta, and, under a sultry sky with parching 
thirst, enduring the want of water for many days. This 
was conclusive of the fidelity of the planets, until we 
discovered that the horoscope was imperfect, for the 
officer had given to the astrologer the wrong date of his 
birth. 

Cast. And this, sir, is your Philosophy of Mystery ? 
Oh for the forethought of my sibyl, that I might learn 
my own fate for listening to this treason against the 
throne of fancy, on the steps of which I have so long 
offered up my homage — this ruthless spoliation of her 
dreamy kingdom ! 



442 SIBYLLINE INFLUENCE. 

Ev. Let me for once play the sibyl, fair Castaly, and 
whisper the penalty in your ear 

Ida. a lesson in natural philosophy; and the apt 
scholar, as I read it on her cheek, has in a moment 
learned it all by heart; o'ershadowing all her bright 
visions of earth and its romances. 

Ev. What marvel that a daughter of earth should be 
so apt in its philosophy ? — 

" For half her thoughts were of its sun. 
And half were of its show'rs." 

But it is not so easy to shake the throne of fancy, or to 
lay the genius of romance. He will ever wave his wand 
of enchantment over the human mind. The poet will 
still build his air-castles, and the ghost-seer indulge in 
his wild visions of nonentity. 

The wonders of creation will still affect us, according 
to the quality of intellect or genius, or the constitution 
or cultivation of the mind. The poor Indian will still 
^^ see God in clouds, and hear him in the wind,'^ and 
the untutored rustic be startled by the shadow of 
a shade. To him the slightest change in the regular 
course of nature will still be a special miracle : thunder, 
the awful voice of Divine reproof; hghtning, the flashes 
of Divine displeasure ; the scintillations of the aurora, 
the spectral forms of contending armies ; and the comet 
foretel the wreck of mighty empires. Against this un- 
tutored devotion I would not breathe a thought, — it is 
the voice of the Deity speaking to the savage. 

But it is the privilege, the duty of intellect, to think 
more deeply of the physiology of nature ; and to learn 
from the physical sciences, its real utility in the grand 
scheme of the creation. 

Philosophy, rising from the sublime study of these 
beautiful phenomena, regards them as the pure effect of 
those elemental laws, by which the integrity of the 



SIBYLLINE INFLUENCE. 443 

universe is preserved. And what ought this philosophy 
to teach us ? Not the superstition of the bigot — for the 
age of special miracles is^ for the present^ past ; not the 
pride of the fatalist^ who refers all to chance and neces- 
sity ; not the mania of the astrologer^ who plumes him- 
self on his prophetic wisdom, and presumes to interpret 
to the letter the mysterious voice of his Creator ; but 
that true wisdom, which threw over Boyle, and Locke, 
and Newton, the mantle of humility and devotion. 



The autumn floods had descended from the moun- 
tains of Gwent; the banks of the meandering Wye 
were desolate, and her woods leafless ; yet the Abbey of 
Tintern was still majestic and unchanged. 

It had been decided, that when the summer sun shone 
again on Wyndcliff, the wanderers should revisit the 
beautiful valleys that lay beneath it, in memory of happy 
hours ; but ere this was fulfilled, changes manifold had 
come over their destiny, from which might be fashioned 
a true love-story. 

For Astrophel, Ida had unconsciously worked a spell 
of natural witchcraft, and his wild thoughts were ever 
chastened by the pure light of her devotion. And 
Evelyn almost confessed to Castaly, that there might 
be a sort of animal magnetism. He has neglected the 
study of the atomic theory, for the contemplation of 
the animated atoms that play around his domestic 
hearth ; and the heart and hfe of Castaly, a poetry in 
themselves, have since interwoven many a blushing 
flower on the classic pages of his philosophy. 



THE END. 



LONDON : 
GILBERT AND RIVINGTON, PRINTERS, 

ST. John's square. 







^^f' 2U in 



'Jiim 



i 



